One-stop resource offering complete textbook for courses in seventeenth-century literature - progressing from introductory topics through to overviews of current research.

Provides a comprehensive overview for both beginning and advanced students of satiric forms from ancient poetry to contemporary digital media.

The &"classical,&" Steven Shankman argues, should not be confused with a particular historical period of Western antiquity, although it may owe its original articulation to the literary and philosophical explorations of ancient Greek authors. Shankman's book searches for and attempts to formulate the shape of the continuing presence&—as embodied in particular literary works mainly from Western antiquity and the neoclassical and modern periods&—of what the author calls a &"classical&" understanding of literature. For Shankman, literature, defined from a classical perspective, is a coherent, compelling, and rationally defensible representation that resists being reduced either to the mere recording of material reality or to the bare exemplification of an abstract philosophical precept. He derives his definition largely from his reading of Greek literature from Homer through Plato, from the history of literary criticism, and from the Greco-Roman tradition in English, American, and French literature. Shankman reveals unsuspected yet convincing connections among authors of such widely disparate times and places. His idea of the &"classic&" that authorizes these connections is presented as normative, thus making possible the evaluation of literary works and, in turn, forthright discussion of what constitutes the &"literary&" as distinct from other kinds of discourse. Shankman's study runs counter to a strong tendency of contemporary criticism that argues precisely against any distinct category of the &"literary.&" He offers a series of interpretations that cumulatively advance theoretical discussion by challenging scholars to rethink the critical paradigms of postmodernism. At the center of the book is a discussion of the quintessentially classic Val&éry poem Le Cimeti&ère marin and the classic qualities it shares with Pindar's third Pythian ode, from which Val&éry derives the epigraph for his poem.

First published in 1676, The Virtuoso set a standard for theatrical satire. It was the most extensive dramatic treatment of modern science since Jonson's The Alchemist and took as its target no less than the Royal Society of London. Shadwell's barbs hit their targets often and cleanly. In 1689 he became Poet Laureate of England, a position he held until his death in 1692. The virtuoso of the title is Sir Nicholas Gimcrack, who like many after him confuses the extent of a collection with the depth of a science. Sir Gimcrack is fascinated by the geography of the moon, the worlds in his microscope, and the possibilities of human flight. More seriously and?for Shadwell's audience?more comically, his obsession with his arrays of worms and spiders proceeds at the expense of his wife and two beautiful nieces. The play also introduces Sir Formal Trifle, a pedantic ciceronian orator and coxcomb. His character established thereafter the theatrical type of the know-it-all blowhard. Famous for its wit and high-speed changes, The Virtuoso is also a display of the prestige of modern science and the pomposity of its ameteurs.