The Profane, the Civil, and the Godly

The Profane, the Civil, and the Godly
Author: Richard P. Gildrie
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 229
Release: 1993-11-24
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0271075414

In this prize-winning study of the sacred and profane in Puritan New England, Richard P. Gildrie seeks to understand not only the fears, aspirations, and moral theories of Puritan reformers but also the customs and attitudes they sought to transform. Topics include tavern mores, family order, witchcraft, criminality, and popular religion. Gildrie demonstrates that Puritanism succeeded in shaping regional society and culture for generations not because New Englanders knew no alternatives but because it offered a compelling vision of human dignity capable of incorporating and adapting crucial elements of popular mores and aspirations.

A Glossary of John Dryden's Critical Terms

A Glossary of John Dryden's Critical Terms
Author: H. James Jensen
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 141
Release: 1969-02-19
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0816657947

A Glossary of John Dryden's Critical Terms was first published in 1969. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Although John Dryden is, as Samuel Johnson described him, the father of modern criticism, his critical writings are difficult for twentieth-century readers to understand and appreciate. Part of the problem lies in the fact that many of the critical terms which Dryden used have changed or expanded in meaning since his time. By providing a series of glosses of seventeenth-century critical terms, this volume clarifies and illuminates Dryden's work for modern readers and scholars. Professor Jensen has catalogued every important word that Dryden used in discussing critical matters, whether about art, literature, or music. In addition to covering all of Dryden's works, the glossary encompasses works of other important seventeenth century critics, among them, John Milton, Ben Johnson, and Thomas Rymer. The structure of the glossary is simple: under each word there is a general definition and, if needed, an essay on the word's origin, history, and general usage. Then the various particular meanings of the word are given, and under each definition are listed the critics, the works, the editions, and the page numbers where the word is used with that particular meaning. Selected quotations abound, substantiating the text. The book will be useful for students and teachers in seventeenth and eighteenth-century literature courses and for scholars doing advanced research. Students will gain an understanding of the development of critical though by reading the essays in the Glossary. Modern scholars of Restoration literature will find new ideas here as well as confirmation of some older conjectures about Dryden.

Eighteenth-Century Writers in their World

Eighteenth-Century Writers in their World
Author: Andrew Varney
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 249
Release: 1999-09-27
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1349277630

This comprehensive new study reads both major and lesser-known texts of the period 1700-1750 in their social, cultural, historical and intellectual contexts. Each chapter introduces and discusses a topic, such as travel, science, money and love, and reads a selection of texts in its light. Covering works by Congreve, Defoe, Mrs Manley, Addison, women poets, Swift, Pope, Fielding and Richardson, this is an invaluable and illuminating guide for students of the period.

Swift's Angers

Swift's Angers
Author: Claude Rawson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2014-10-06
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1316123499

Jonathan Swift's angers were all too real, though Swift was temperamentally equivocal about their display. Even in his most brilliant satire, A Tale of a Tub, the aggressive vitality of the narrative is designed, for all the intensity of its sting, never to lose its cool. Yet Swift's angers are partly self-implicating, since his own temperament was close to the things he attacked, and behind his angers are deep self-divisions. Though he regarded himself as 'English' and despised the Irish 'natives' over whom the English ruled, Swift became the hero of an Irish independence he would not have desired. In this magisterial account, Claude Rawson, widely considered the leading Swift scholar of our time, brings together recent work, as well as classic earlier discussions extensively revised, offering fresh insights into Swift's bleak view of human nature, his brilliant wit, and the indignations and self-divisions of his writings and political activism.

Why Gould Was Wrong

Why Gould Was Wrong
Author: Nils K. Oeijord
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 723
Release: 2003
Genre: Evolution (Biology)
ISBN: 0595301568

Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) was a leading critic of human behavioral genetics, human sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, and the modern evolutionary synthesis. Why Gould Was Wrong explains why Gould's claims were horribly wrong.

A Dictionary of Human Instincts

A Dictionary of Human Instincts
Author: Nils K. Oeijord
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 151
Release: 2001-08
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0595197469

This dictionary is probably the first dictionary of human instincts to be published. Moreover, the Introduction of the dictionary contains the first publication of the new and important Bronston heritability coefficient. Note: A Dictionary of Human Instincts also appears as an appendix to Human Behavior: The New Synthesis by Mitch Bronston and Nils K. Oeijord.

Parodies, Hoaxes, Mock Treatises

Parodies, Hoaxes, Mock Treatises
Author: Jonathan Swift
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 1062
Release: 2013-07-18
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1107651557

Swift's parodies are among his most fascinating works, but perhaps require most explication for the modern reader. Valerie Rumbold brings a new depth and detail to the editing of Swift's Bickerstaff papers, 'Polite Conversation', 'Directions to Servants' and other works on language and conduct. Highlights include a fresh investigation of the political and print contexts of the Bickerstaff papers, full commentaries on such smaller works as 'A Modest Defence of Punning' and 'On Barbarous Denominations in Ireland', identification and explanation of many additional sayings in 'Polite Conversation', and a detailed contextualisation of 'Directions to Servants' in contemporary domestic theory and practice. A substantial thematic Introduction is supplemented by an individual headnote and full annotation to each work. The Textual Introduction explores the publishing strategies adopted by Swift and his booksellers, and a separate Textual Account of each work presents and discusses changes in the texts over time.