Literature, Learning, and Social Hierarchy in Early Modern Europe
Published on 17. March 2022
Book
Hardback
312 pages
978-0-19-726733-2 (ISBN)
Description
The literature and literate knowledge that were produced in Europe from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries emanated from societies that were rigidly hierarchical. What difference did that fact make to the literature and literate knowledge? How did social hierarchy shape the production of literature and literate knowledge (by writers, patrons, printers) and their reception (by readers and audiences)? Literature, Learning, and Social Hierarchy in Early Modern Europe is the first book to ask these question of Western Europe, in relation to a wide range of genres, disciplines, practices, and writers. The picture that emerges is of literature and literate knowledge largely bolstering social hierarchies while also questioning at times the very basis on which societies measured the status and worth of their members.
Reviews / Votes
The volume places the subject of learning firmly at the heart of the history of European societies and their evolution. * Elisabeth C. Macknight, Historical Reflections * There is much to learn and consider in this erudite and engaging volume. Besides its novel insights, it offers a robust and salutary reminder of the extent to which social hierarchies preoccupied early moderns throughout Europe, and how central the production and distribution of status was to the meaning-making of early modern texts. While laying down a map for the broad dimensions of the relationship, Kenny and his contributors have opened a door that will no doubt inspire exploration for years to come. * Adam Bridgen, The Seventeenth Century *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
21
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 160 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
1 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-726733-2 (9780197267332)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Neil Kenny is Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Professor of French at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of the British Academy, where he is involved in language policy work as Lead Fellow for Languages. His publications include The Uses of Curiosity in Early Modern France and Germany (2004), Death and Tenses: Posthumous Presence in Early Modern France (2015), and Born to Write: Literary Families and Social Hierarchy in Early Modern France (2021), all with Oxford University Press.
Content
List of Figures
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
1: NEIL KENNY: Introduction
Language, Social Literacy, and Social Status
2: WARREN BOUTCHER: 'Noble ambition': New Social Literacies and Traditional Hierarchies in Early Modern European Literature and History
3: HELENA SANSON: Women's Social Status and their Access to Learning in Multilingual Early Modern Italy
4: CHRISTINE STEVENSON: English Builders in Translation
Roles of Cultural Production in Social Status
5: IAN MACLEAN: The Social Status of Publishers of Learned Texts in Europe 1560-1630
6: SARAH GWYNETH ROSS: Literary Collaboration and Social Legitimacy in an Actor's Oeuvre: The Peculiar Case of Francesco Andreini (d.1624)
7: JANE STEVENSON: Marta Marchina, Poetry and Social Mobility in Baroque Rome
Representing Social Status: Genres and Discourses
8: RICHARD OOSTERHOFF: The Idiota's Authority: Fifteenth-Century Hierarchies in Dialogue
9: SUSAN WISEMAN: Making 'Gypsies' in the English Reformation? Laws, Words and Texts (1530-1621)
10: JONATHAN PATTERSON: 'Greatness going off' in Renaissance Antony and Cleopatra Tragedies
11: RICHARD MCCABE: Tragedy, or the Fall of Middle-Class Men
A Two-Way Relation
12: SIMON PARK: The Scribes of the Old Pillory: Hired Hands and their Customers in Sixteenth-Century Lisbon
13: COLIN BURROW: Authorship and Social Status in Early Modern England
Index
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
1: NEIL KENNY: Introduction
Language, Social Literacy, and Social Status
2: WARREN BOUTCHER: 'Noble ambition': New Social Literacies and Traditional Hierarchies in Early Modern European Literature and History
3: HELENA SANSON: Women's Social Status and their Access to Learning in Multilingual Early Modern Italy
4: CHRISTINE STEVENSON: English Builders in Translation
Roles of Cultural Production in Social Status
5: IAN MACLEAN: The Social Status of Publishers of Learned Texts in Europe 1560-1630
6: SARAH GWYNETH ROSS: Literary Collaboration and Social Legitimacy in an Actor's Oeuvre: The Peculiar Case of Francesco Andreini (d.1624)
7: JANE STEVENSON: Marta Marchina, Poetry and Social Mobility in Baroque Rome
Representing Social Status: Genres and Discourses
8: RICHARD OOSTERHOFF: The Idiota's Authority: Fifteenth-Century Hierarchies in Dialogue
9: SUSAN WISEMAN: Making 'Gypsies' in the English Reformation? Laws, Words and Texts (1530-1621)
10: JONATHAN PATTERSON: 'Greatness going off' in Renaissance Antony and Cleopatra Tragedies
11: RICHARD MCCABE: Tragedy, or the Fall of Middle-Class Men
A Two-Way Relation
12: SIMON PARK: The Scribes of the Old Pillory: Hired Hands and their Customers in Sixteenth-Century Lisbon
13: COLIN BURROW: Authorship and Social Status in Early Modern England
Index