Routledge Library Editions
SHAKESPEARE,
SPENSER, DONNE
SHAKESPEARE
Routledge Library Editions Shakespeare
CRITICAL STUDIES
In 36 Volumes
I | Shakespeares Poetic Styles | Baxter |
II | The Shakespeare Inset | Berry |
III | Shakespeare | Bradbrook |
IV | Shakespeares Dramatic Structures | Brennan |
V | Focus on Macbeth | Brown |
VI | Shakespeares Soliloquies | Clemen |
VII | Shakespeares Dramatic Art | Clemen |
VIII | A Commentary on Shakespeares Richard III | Clemen |
IX | The Development of Shakespeares Imagery | Clemen |
X | Shakespeare | Duthie |
XI | Shakespeare and the Confines of Art | Edwards |
XII | Shakespeare the Dramatist | Ellis-Fermor |
XIII | Shakespeares Drama | Ellis-Fermor |
XIV | The Language of Shakespeares Plays | Evans |
XV | Coleridge on Shakespeare | Foakes |
XVI | Shakespeare | Foakes |
XVII | Shakespeares Poetics | Fraser |
XVIII | Shakespeare | Frye |
XIX | The Shakespeare Claimants | Gibson |
XX | Iconoclastes | Griffith |
XXI | That Shakespeherian Rag | Hawkes |
XXII | The Living Image | Henn |
XXIII | Shakespeare, Spenser, Donne | Kermode |
XXIV | Themes and Variations in Shakespeares Sonnets | Leishman |
XXV | King Lear in Our Time | Mack |
XXVI | Shakespeare as Collaborator | Muir |
XXVII | Shakespeares Sonnets | Muir |
XXVIII | The Sources of Shakespeares Plays | Muir |
XXIX | The Voyage to Illyria | Muir & OLoughlin |
XXX | Shakespeare | Nicoll |
XXXI | The Winters Tale | Pyle |
XXXII | The Problem Plays of Shakespeare | Schanzer |
XXXIII | Swearing and Perjury in Shakespeares Plays | Shirley |
XXXIV | The Artistry of Shakespeares Prose | Vickers |
XXXV | Literature and Drama | Wells |
XXXVI | Readings on the Character of Hamlet | Williamson |
SHAKESPEARE,
SPENSER, DONNE
Renaissance Essays
FRANK KERMODE
First published in 1971
Reprinted in 2005 by
Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Transferred to Digital Printing 2008
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
1971 Frank Kermode
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Shakespeare, Spenser, Donne
ISBN 0-415-35294-0
ISBN 0-415-33086-6 (set)
Miniset: Critical Studies
Series: Routledge Library Editions Shakespeare
SHAKESPEARE,
SPENSER,
DONNE
Renaissance Essays
by
FRANK KERMODE
First published 1971
by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd
Broadway House,
6874 Carter Lane,
London EC 4V 5EL
Printed in Great Britain by
Butler and Tanner Ltd
Frome and London
Frank Kermode 1971
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
without permission from the publisher, except for
the quotation of brief passages in criticism
ISBN 0 7100 7003 9
CONTENTS
A great part of this book was written during my tenure of the John Edward Taylor Chair at Manchester University. , though delivered as a lecture at Columbia University on the occasion of the quatercentenary in 1964, also belongs to these same years, this is in most ways a Manchester volume, and I want to express my gratitude to all friends and colleagues there. Older and even dearer debts call for acknowledgment: to Professor D. J. Gordon, of Reading University, without whose aid few of these projects would ever have been conceived, and to Mr. J. B. Trapp, Librarian of the Warburg Institute, who took a hand in their rearing. For imperfections of constitution or education the parent is, naturally, responsible.
London
December 1970
FRANK KERMODE
Of these essays the earliest was written in 1956, the latest in 1970, Somethe first four and, I suppose, the eighthlook like what is known as research, and the remainder look like what is known as criticism, though they all felt rather alike in the writing. It does seem absurd of people to suppose that only the first kind or only the second can be goodespecially teachers, who are paid to do both and to range between library and classroom. The difference is that the research pieces are intended to apply to new information to, or contest existing solutions of, problems of the sort that exercise scholars, whereas the others are of a more explanatory nature and intended, in the first instance, for non-professors. I suppose the scholarly and pedogogical extremes might be represented by . But I very much hope that there is nothing here that does not contain something new, and nothing that defies the attention of all save the erudite.