Acknowledgments and Note on Citations vii Introduction: Ancient Paradigms in Modern Conflicts 1 PART ONE: Two Early Modern Revisions of the Mean 19 1. Donne and the Personal Mean 21 2. "Mediocrities "and "Extremities ": Baconian Flexibility and the Aristotelian Mean 48 PART TWO: Means and Extremes in Early Modern Georgic 77 3. Moderation,Temperate Climate,and National Ethos from Spenser to Milton 79 4. Concord, Conquest, and Commerce from Spenser to Cowley 111 PART THREE: Erotic Excess and Early Modern Social Conflicts 143 5. Passionate Extremes and Noble Natures from Elizabethan to Caroline Literature 145 6. Erotic Excess versus Interest in Mid-to Late-Seventeenth-Century Literature 170 PART FOUR: Moderation and Excess in the Seventeenth-Century Symposiastic Lyric 197 7. Drinking and the Politics of Poetic Identity from Jonson to Herrick 199 8. Drinking and Cultural Conflict from Lovelace to Rochester 225 PART FIVE: Reimagining Moderation:The Miltonic Example 253 9. Paradise Lost ,Pleasurable Restraint, and the Mean of Self-Respect 255 Postscript: Sublime Excess, Dull Moderation, and Contemporary Ambivalence 285 Notes 289 Index 353
Scodel's subtlety and erudition make him a superb interpreter of Renaissance literature and culture. Across a remarkable range of texts, Excess and the Mean in Early Modern English Literature uncovers the intellectual and artistic passions that informed the quest for ethical norms in a period of acute political and ideological division. -- David Norbrook, University of Maryland, College Park An absorbing, beautifully researched, and skillfully argued discussion of a topic that in Scodel's handling opens up some spacious and important perspectives on seventeenth century English life and culture. The discussion is extremely detailed and nuanced and respectful of the complexity of the evidence at hand. -- Gordon Braden, University of Virginia
Joshua Scodel is Associate Professor of English, Comparative Literature, and the Humanities at the University of Chicago. He is the author of The English Poetic Epitoph.
"A worthy contribution to the ongoing study of the mentality of the early modern period and its relationship to the classical and Christian heritage."--Choice "[Scodel's] range of material and reference is admirable. He moves easily and with panache through five sections... There is much to admire and learn from in Excess and the Mean in Early Modern English Literature."--Andrew Hadfield, Times Literary Supplement "An excellent book, ambitious in scope and masterful in its management of scholarly resources and interpretive techniques."--Jon A. Quitslund, Renaissance Quarterly
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