From Many Gods to One
Divine Action in Renaissance Epic
240 pages
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5 1/2 x 8 1/2
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© 2006
- Contents
- Review Quotes
Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations and a Note on Translations
Introduction
CHAPTER 1
The Polytheistic Model:
Homer and Virgil
CHAPTER 2
Neo-Latin Epic:
Petrarch and Vida
CHAPTER 3
Providence, Irony, and Magic:
Orlando furioso
CHAPTER 4
With God on Our Side:
Gerusalemme liberata
CHAPTER 5
The Tragedy of Creaturely Error:
Paradise Lost
Afterword
Works Cited
Index
Abbreviations and a Note on Translations
Introduction
CHAPTER 1
The Polytheistic Model:
Homer and Virgil
CHAPTER 2
Neo-Latin Epic:
Petrarch and Vida
CHAPTER 3
Providence, Irony, and Magic:
Orlando furioso
CHAPTER 4
With God on Our Side:
Gerusalemme liberata
CHAPTER 5
The Tragedy of Creaturely Error:
Paradise Lost
Afterword
Works Cited
Index
Review Quotes
Pramit Chaudhuri | Bryn Mawr Classical Review
"In this book Gregory examines the Renaissance reinvention of the divine action of classical epic. In five chapters covering Homer to Milton, he explains how Renaissance poets confronted the problem of adapting the narrative structure of classical polytheistic epic to Christian monotheistic norms. Gregory’s comparative approach will give readers an excellent sense of the distinctiveness of, and continuities between, classical and post-classical epic traditions. The book will be of particular interest to classicists working on the European epic tradition, reception studies, and neo-Latin literature, but it also makes an excellent general introduction to Renaissance epic. The clarity and fluency of Gregory’s prose, and the light but judicious annotation, will add to the book’s wide appeal, as will its economy—the book comes in at just over two hundred pages and at a very reasonable price to boot."—Pramit Chaudhuri, Bryn Mawr Classical Review
Daniel Javitch | Renaissance Quarterly
"This lively book is a stuimulating and much-needed study of the difficulties Renaissance epic poets faced, and of some of the solutions they found, when they had to replace the Olympian deities of classical herioc poetry with a Christian God. . . . Gregory has reanimated the comparative study of the epic tradition, and reaffirmed its value."
Bendi Benson Schrambach | Comitatus
"Gregory’s hermeneutical explanations are . . . skilfully rendered, granting the reader a fresh glimpse into a known past. From Many Gods to One thus manages . . . to weave one cohesive and compelling tale: that of the demise of the epic."
Catherine Gimelli Martin | Studies in English Literature
"An important, well researched contribution both to epic and Milton studies. . . . [Gregory’s] study aims at a broad range of readers by combining a detailed and accurate summary of Renaissance epic from its Virgilian sources to its Renaissance heirs."
Matthew Treherne | MLR
"The book’s primary contribution is in offering a broad survey of the crucial question of the relationship between Christian conceptions of divinity and the classical models within which Renaissance poets attempted to represent those conceptions. . . . It is a pleasure to read a book written with such clarity."
Diane Louise Johnson | Christianity and Literature
"[A] bright and delightfully readable study of divinity and divine action in epic poetry."
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Literature and Literary Criticism: British and Irish Literature
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