The Poetics of Literary Transfer in Early Modern France and England

In order to explore the formation of the literary canons in early modern France and England, Melehy (Romance languages, U. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill) looks at four authors whose work displays a concern for the role of a literary canon in an emergent national state. His emphasis is on how Joachim Du Belly (1522-60), Edmund Spenser (1552-99), Michel Montaigne (1533-92), and William Shakespeare (1564-1616) engaged in strategies of rewriting the literary work of other places and times, and it is to such texts that he turns his attention. His topics include Du Bellay defending the space of early modern culture, Spenser and antiquities of Britain, Montaigne and the words of vanity, and old and new Roman times in Shakespeare. Some of the material has been published in earlier form. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Hassan Melehy teaches in the Department of Romance Languages at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has published widely on early modern literature and philosophy, critical theory, and cinema studies.