[Review] The Ludic Self in Seventeenth-Century English Literature.
- UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Christopher T. Hodgkins, Professor (Creator)
- Institution
- The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
- Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Abstract: The analysis of plays like the dissection of one's playmate, promises to increase our knowledge, but at a certain cost. Anyone seriously discussing something called “play theory” risks being alternately soporific and ridiculous—droning polysyllabically about hopscotch or, dressed in a labcoat, taking down Touchstone?s speeches in conscientious shorthand. Happily, Anna K. Nardo has run these risks successfully, pursuing the “ludic” without becoming ludicrous; in fact, in a day when muc theoretically explicit criticism neither teaches nor delights, her book does both. Her achievement is yet more impressive because the authors of whom she writes— Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert, Marvell, Burton, and Browne—present a daunting breadth of modes, genres, styles, and topics, and have occasioned an even more daunting amount of critical discussion; yet, having mastered such a body of material, she wears her learning lightly, writing with a grace and wit appropriate to her subjects.
[Review] The Ludic Self in Seventeenth-Century English Literature.
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Created on 6/6/2011
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Christianity and Literature 41: 343-46.
- Language: English
- Date: 1993
- Keywords
- Book review, 17th century English poets, Literary play