Reminding readers of John Dryden’s persistent use of occult rhetoric, Jack M. Armistead argues that Dryden’s otherworldliness involves more than Christian apologetics, biblical typology, or intermittent borrowings from the supernatural materials in classical literature. Rather, it manifests throughout his career in occult materials drawn from many traditions, including but going well beyond the standard classical and Christian ones. As Armistead shows, Dryden’s practice of juxtaposing pre- and post-scientific treatments of such occult topics as alchemy, astrology, and demonology pervades many of his poems and plays. In its engagement with works such as The Indian Queen, Annus Mirabilis, All for Love, and Absalom and Achitophel, among many others, Otherworldly John Dryden not only enhances our understanding of Dryden’s works, but also tracks the writer’s attitudes about Providence and the ability of the poet to perceive a hidden design in earthly events.

Reminding readers of John Dryden's persistent use of occult rhetoric, Armistead argues that Dryden's otherworldliness involves more than Christian apologetics, biblical typology, or intermittent borrowings from the supernatural materials in classical literature. Otherworldly John Dryden engages with a wide range of the writer's poetry and plays, enhancing our understanding of Dryden's works and tracing the writer's attitudes about Providence and the ability of the poet to perceive a hidden design in earthly events.

The best conception of love, Marcus Nordlund contends, and hence the best framework for its literary analysis, must be a fusion of evolutionary, cultural, and historical explanation. It is within just such a bio-cultural nexus that Nordlund explores Shakespeare’s treatment of different forms of love. His approach leads to a valuable new perspective on Shakespearean love and, more broadly, on the interaction between our common humanity and our historical contingency as they are reflected, recast, transformed, or even suppressed in literary works. After addressing critical issues about love, biology, and culture raised by his method, Nordlund considers four specific forms of love in seven of Shakespeare’s plays. Examining the vicissitudes of parental love in Titus Andronicus and Coriolanus, he argues that Shakespeare makes a sustained inquiry into the impact of culture and society upon the natural human affections. King Lear offers insight into the conflicted relationship between love and duty. In two problem plays about romantic love, Troilus and Cressida and All’s Well that Ends Well, the tension between individual idiosyncrasies and social consensus becomes especially salient. And finally, in Othello and The Winter’s Tale, Nordlund asks what Shakespeare can tell us about the dark avatar of jealousy.

An account of the way in which a decline in personal morality caused the fall of the great civilizations of Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, medieval Christendom, and England since the Reformation.

This index is a veritable who's who of the greats of Western literature. . . . The Board recommends it for every collection whose users conduct analytical studies of literature. Reference Books Bulletin The powerful hold that literature exercises is based primarily on recognition--the reader's ability to identify with others through shared human concerns that transcend ttace, time, and cultural boundaries. These universal themes, and how they have been treated in literature from the classical period to the present, are the subject of the critical essays comprising this volume. A fascinating resource for students and general readers and an essential research tool for scholars in literature, it is the first thematic reference on this scale to be published in English. The dictionary consists of 143 essays contributed by 98 specialists in world literature. Topics covered include themes relating to adventure, family life, the supernatural, eroticism, status, humor, idealism, terror, and many other categories of human experience. Each entry begins with a defintion and a sketch on the origin and historical background of the literary theme. The topical essay discusses the significance and occurrence of the theme in world literature and supplies information on geographical area, genre, style, and chronology. Entries conclude with a selected bibliography of scholarship in the area. A cross-index to themes and motifs will enable the reader to find information on secondary or related topics. Convenient to use and presented in a standardized format, this major new reference will be an important acquisition for libraries with collections in English, American, and world literature.

An accessible introduction to some of the most important ideas developed in Plato's Symposium.