by RichardStrier (Author)
Taking Wittgenstein's Don't think, but look as his motto, Richard Strier argues against the application of a priori schemes to Renaissance (and all) texts. He argues for the possibility and desirability of rigorously attentive but pre-theoretical reading. His approach privileges particularity and attempts to respect the resistant structures of texts. He opposes theories, critical and historical, that dictate in advance what texts must--or cannot--say or do. The first part of the book, Against Schemes, demonstrates, in discussions of Rosemond Tuve, Stephen Greenblatt, and Stanley Fish among others, how both historicist and purely theoretical approaches can equally produce distortion of particulars. The second part, Against Received Ideas, shows how a variety of texts (by Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert, and others) have been seen through the lenses of fixed, mainly conservative ideas in ways that have obscured their actual, surprising, and sometimes surprisingly radical content.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 256
Edition: New Ed
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 31 Mar 1997
ISBN 10: 0520209052
ISBN 13: 9780520209053