Resistant Structures: Particularity, Radicalism, and Renaissance TextsTaking Wittgenstein's "Don't think, but look" as his motto, Richard Strier argues against the application of a priori schemes to Renaissance (and all) texts. He argues for the possibility and desirability of rigorously attentive but "pre-theoretical" reading. His approach privileges particularity and attempts to respect the "resistant structures" of texts. He opposes theories, critical and historical, that dictate in advance what texts must—or cannot—say or do. The first part of the book, "Against Schemes," demonstrates, in discussions of Rosemond Tuve, Stephen Greenblatt, and Stanley Fish among others, how both historicist and purely theoretical approaches can equally produce distortion of particulars. The second part, "Against Received Ideas," shows how a variety of texts (by Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert, and others) have been seen through the lenses of fixed, mainly conservative ideas in ways that have obscured their actual, surprising, and sometimes surprisingly radical content. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1996. Taking Wittgenstein's "Don't think, but look" as his motto, Richard Strier argues against the application of a priori schemes to Renaissance (and all) texts. He argues for the possibility and desirability of rigorously attentive but "pre-theoretical" read |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 84
Page 18
... argument of this book by finding the won- derful Alechinsky litho reproduced ( with kind permission of the artist ) on the cover . I read this image as showing the critic as Fool attempting to impose a scheme on a resistant text ...
... argument of this book by finding the won- derful Alechinsky litho reproduced ( with kind permission of the artist ) on the cover . I read this image as showing the critic as Fool attempting to impose a scheme on a resistant text ...
Page 2
... argue for the desirability of approaching individual texts with as few presuppositions — theoretical and historical — as possible.2 The more that the critic knows in advance what a text must or cannot do , the less reading , in the ...
... argue for the desirability of approaching individual texts with as few presuppositions — theoretical and historical — as possible.2 The more that the critic knows in advance what a text must or cannot do , the less reading , in the ...
Page 3
... argue , it is very much here . Claims about texts that get these features wrong , that misquote , miscount , etc. , are never taken to be viable . Differing interpretations of a text generally share a large number of particular ...
... argue , it is very much here . Claims about texts that get these features wrong , that misquote , miscount , etc. , are never taken to be viable . Differing interpretations of a text generally share a large number of particular ...
Page 4
... argues that it is as inap- propriate to deny as it is to assert the possibility of saintliness a priori . Essays 6-8 form a unit . As their titles indicate , they argue for what I am calling " impossible radicalism " in the sixteenth ...
... argues that it is as inap- propriate to deny as it is to assert the possibility of saintliness a priori . Essays 6-8 form a unit . As their titles indicate , they argue for what I am calling " impossible radicalism " in the sixteenth ...
Page 4
... argue , to present periods or " discursive formations " as too homogeneous , dominant discourses as too successfully dominant ( and too homogeneous in them- selves ) , and to overemphasize breaks or ruptures between periods or ...
... argue , to present periods or " discursive formations " as too homogeneous , dominant discourses as too successfully dominant ( and too homogeneous in them- selves ) , and to overemphasize breaks or ruptures between periods or ...
Contents
1 | |
4 | |
SelfConsumption | 27 |
Theory | 42 |
New Historicism | 67 |
Impossible Worldliness Devout Humanism | 83 |
Impossible Transcendence | 109 |
Impossible Radicalism I Donne and Freedom of Conscience | 118 |
Impossible Radicalism II Shakespeare and Disobedience | 165 |
Impossible Radicalism and Impossible Value Nahum Tates King Lear | 203 |
INDEX | 233 |
Other editions - View all
Resistant Structures: Particularity, Radicalism, and Renaissance Texts Richard Strier Limited preview - 1995 |
Resistant Structures: Particularity, Radicalism, and Renaissance Texts Richard Strier Limited preview - 2023 |
Resistant Structures: Particularity, Radicalism, and Renaissance Texts Richard Strier Limited preview - 1995 |
Common terms and phrases
Absalom and Achitophel argue argument assertion Bacon behavior Burton Cambridge Castellio chap Christian Church-porch conscience context Cordelia Coriolanus Cornwall courtier critic critique cultural deconstruction devout humanism distinction Donne's Eagleton early modern Edmund Elizabethan emphasis England English Erasmus essay Exclusion Crisis Fish Fish's Folio George Herbert Gloucester Gloucester's Goneril Greenblatt Hamlet Helen Gardner historical Historicism J. H. Hexter John Donne Kent King Lear language Lear's Leontes lines literary London Luther mean metaphor moral obedience Oswald Oxford perhaps philosophical phrase Phrygius poem Poetry political Ponet position prince Protestant question radical reading rebellion Reformation Regan Religion religious Renaissance resistance rhetoric Richard Richard II Satire III scene Schoenfeldt seems sense Shakespeare social Sonnets soul Stanley Fish stanza Stephen Greenblatt Strier suggest Tate Tate's Lear Tate's play Theory thou tradition trans true truth Tuve Tuve's University Press Utopia Whigs William Empson York