Classicism and Beyond / Il classicismo e oltre
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Edited by:
Marc Föcking
The new book series Classicism and Beyond / Il classicismo e oltre evolved on the basis of the funded research project "Anticlassicism in the Cinquecento" and is dedicated to the dynamic dialectic of poetological and aesthetic standardization efforts of the Italian Cinquecento and the counter- and alternative movements partly incorporated in, and partly excluded by, these efforts.
The book series will bring together works that examine this dialectic of stabilization and destabilization of classicist norm structures in literature from the Italian Cinquecento to the European 18th century in systematic, general approaches as well as readings of individual texts. It will also focus on the diachronic aspects of these dynamics, whether they constitute or destabilize epochs, and continue to raise the question of the pertinence of epoch labels such as "Renaissance", "Classicism", "Mannerism", "Baroque" or "Seicentismo".
Series editors
Marc Föcking (Hamburg University)
Susanne A. Friede (Bochum University)
Florian Mehltretter (Munich University, LMU)
Angela Oster (Munich University, LMU)
The volumes of the series are peer-reviewed.
Editorial Board
Antonio Corsaro (Università degli studi di Urbino Carlo Bo)
Chiara Lastraioli (Université de Tours)
Sarah Rolfe Prodan (Stanford University)
Dietrich Scholler (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz)
Anita Traninger (Freie Universität Berlin)
Copyright cover image: Frans Huys, Groteske Maske, 1555, Kupferstich, Blatt 159x143 mm, Inventar-Nr.: FHuys WB 3.1b, (c) bpk Berlin / Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum
Author / Editor information
M. Föcking, Hamburg University; S.A. Friede, Bochum University; F. Mehltretter and A. Oster, Munich University (LMU), Germany.
Topics
How can we appropriately describe Giovan Battista Marino’s very complex and ambiguous poetics? Torn between strong modernity claims on the one hand and literary tradition as its original starting point on the other, it resists simplistic classifications such as rupture versus continuity. We can in fact identify various convergences, divergences, and hybridizations between literary past and present, which clearly shows us that even an apparently revolutionary poetics such as Marino’s can only really be understood in light of its historical context. More specifically, this study demonstrates that three highly productive spheres of critical debate in sixteenth-century Italy (the sacred and secular rhetoric, as well as the controversy over tragicomedy) deeply influenced and formed Marino’s poetics.
Machiavelli is considered to have been an "admirer" of Dante, but his Asino is also read as satire on Dante. So what is the position of the Commedia in Machiavelli’s poetry? This volume provides a nuanced answer that combines hermeneutic approaches with a computer-based analysis of the "Danticity" of Machiavelli’s tercets. It also examines the opportunities and limits of the new methods developed for the analysis.
This volume studies the profile of one of the most important figures of sixteenth-century Florence, Giovan Battista Gelli, highlighting some less studied aspects generally believed to be marginal in the context of his work. Not only was Gelli deeply interested in figurative art, attested in several works of his, he can also be considered one of the protagonists of the vivid sixteenth-century debates on Dante.
‘Anticlassicisms,’ as a plural, react to the many possible forms of ‘classicisms.’ In the sixteenth century, classicist tendencies range from humanist traditions focusing on Horace and the teachings of rhetoric, via Pietro Bembo’s canonization of a ‘second antiquity’ in the works of the fourteenth-century classics, Petrarch and Boccaccio, to the Aristotelianism of the second half of the century. Correspondingly, the various tendencies to destabilize or to subvert or contradict these manifold and historically dynamic ‘classicisms’ need to be distinguished as so many ‘anticlassicisms’. This volume, after discussing the history and possible implications of the label ‘anticlassicism’ in Renaissance studies, differentiates and analyzes these ‘anticlassicisms.’ It distinguishes the various forms of opposition to ‘classicisms’ as to their scope (on a scale between radical poetological dissension to merely sectorial opposition in a given literary genre) and to their alternative models, be they authors (like Dante) or texts. At the same time, the various chapters specify the degree of difference or erosion inherent in anticlassicist tendencies with respect to their ‘classicist’ counterparts, ranging from implicit ‘system disturbances’ to open, intended antagonism (as in Bernesque poetry), with a view to establishing an overall picture of this field of phenomena for the first time.
