by M. I. Ebbutt (1995)
"As the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth, a number of books appeared in English dealing with the romantic and fascinating world of myth and legend. Among the few that went on to become minor classics of that genre was M. I. Ebbutt's Hero Myths and Legends of the British Race." "The nine stories selected from the 1910 edition of Ebbutt's book have been reset in a modern typeface, but retaining every detail - content, spelling and orthography - in order to keep the flavour of the time and the nature of Ebbutt's writing. In editing and selecting the stories for inclusion in this version, John Matthews has written an introductory essay to each, providing the background, context and relevant historical or mythological origins of the tales. He also draws on his considerable expertise and knowledge of the subject to provide an overall Introduction to this edition, designed to bring the stories to a new audience worldwide." "As well as the original stories, a selection of the original illustrations has also been included to show the pictorial style used at the time. These have been supplemented by new colour plates, specially painted for this edition by artist and illustrator Peter Komarnyckyj."--BOOK JACKET.
A.J. Boyle
"Tragic Seneca undertakes a radical re-evaluation of Seneca's plays, their relationship to Roman imperial culture and their instrumental role in the evolution of the European theatrical tradition." "Tragic Seneca attempts to restore Seneca to a central position in the European literary tradition. It will provide readers and directors of Seneca's plays with the essential critical guide to their intellectual, cultural and dramatic complexity."--Jacket.
Ann E. Moyer
"Theories of music and its nature, central to many aspects of Renaissance thought, have nonetheless been difficult to integrate into modern scholarship. In Musica Scientia, Ann E. Moyer asserts that the Renaissance discipline must be understood in the terms of other contemporary fields of knowledge." "Moyer begins with a clear and concise historical summary of ancient and medieval musical thought, emphasizing the importance of the Phythagorean teachings about music, transmitted to the medieval world through Boethius's De institutione arithmetica. Describing the factors that, in the late fifteenth century, led scholars and practicing musicians to raise new questions about the discipline and its study, Moyer closely analyzes the writings of the sixteenth-century Italians who debated the nature of music and its relationship to mathematics, the natural sciences, poetry, and rhetoric. Renaissance thinking about music, she shows, wrought a dramatic change in the understanding of the field: scholars came to distinguish between a science of sounding bodies and an art of music, an art to be studied in terms of poetics and the history of taste." "Moyer's book offers a new and systematic treatment of a critical but neglected aspect of Renaissance thought. It makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the classification of knowledge in the Renaissance and of the process by which two competing kinds of analysis--humanistic and mathematical--came to distinguish the modern arts and sciences."--BOOK JACKET.
Nancy Vine Durling
In this first volume of critical essays ever devoted to Jean Renart's work, contributors draw on political and social history, women's studies, translation theory, musicology, and literary theory to illuminate Jean's remarkable contribution to the highly complex genre of courtly romance. An extraordinary blend of realism and high artifice, unique in its combined use of songs and narrative, Jean Renart and the Art of Romance offers zestful dalliances in high places, handsome but self-serving knights, and a beautiful woman whose decisive intelligence allows her to triumph over daunting odds. An important contribution to our understanding of thirteenth-century romance, this volume of essays will prove of interest to scholars of medieval French literature, history, musicology, and codicology.
Kurt A. Schreyer
"In Shakespeare's Medieval Craft, Kurt A. Schreyer explores the relationship between Shakespeare's plays and a tradition of late medieval English biblical drama known as mystery plays. Scholars of English theater have long debated Shakespeare's connection to the mystery play tradition, but Schreyer provides new perspective on the subject by focusing on the Chester Banns, a sixteenth-century proclamation announcing the annual performance of that city's cycle of mystery plays. Through close study of the Banns, Schreyer demonstrates the central importance of medieval stage objects--as vital and direct agents and not merely as precursors--to the Shakespearean stage." -- Publisher's description.