Reading the Renaissance: Ideas and Idioms from Shakespeare to Milton (Medieval and Renaissance Literary Studies)

Reading the Renaissance is a timely and compelling answer to a decades-long attack on literature by various schools of critical theory. A collection of new and provocative essays by prominent scholars, it speaks with learning, wit, and eloquence to the enduring value of Renaissance literature and literary study. These scholars focus on the various Renaissance authors they consider, not contemporary theories or schools that might seem to offer totalizing safety. They are committed to the thrill of reading the Renaissance not the power of rewriting it. This commitment, not coincidentally, leads them to authoritative new readings of major texts.