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 |
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... assertions in this paragraph to the following ( and the reader who is unfamiliar with these discussions may wish to consult the following ) . For an application of ( something like ) the skeptical position that I am attacking to matters ...
... assertions in this paragraph to the following ( and the reader who is unfamiliar with these discussions may wish to consult the following ) . For an application of ( something like ) the skeptical position that I am attacking to matters ...
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... assert with Groucho Marx that " Whatever it is , I'm against it . " I am wary of the totalizing impulse that tempts ... assertions . This division corresponds to the two sections of this book . The first section , com- prising Essays i ...
... assert with Groucho Marx that " Whatever it is , I'm against it . " I am wary of the totalizing impulse that tempts ... assertions . This division corresponds to the two sections of this book . The first section , com- prising Essays i ...
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... 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 and seventeenth centuries . They set themselves against a ...
... 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 and seventeenth centuries . They set themselves against a ...
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... assertion of the point that dogmas were first formulated against heretics , see the paragraph from the Encyclopedia of Religion and Religions that Mitchell quotes ( 495 ) . though it should be noted that even the author of 8 INTRODUCTION.
... assertion of the point that dogmas were first formulated against heretics , see the paragraph from the Encyclopedia of Religion and Religions that Mitchell quotes ( 495 ) . though it should be noted that even the author of 8 INTRODUCTION.
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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