Year: 2015
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This dissertation argues that important modes of self-definition in the Renaissance draw on the linguistic uncertainty in medieval literary constructions of lovers. Just as in Renaissance texts, medieval lovers such as Tristan and Isolde fashion themselves as a “misticall union”: a conglomerate self that shares one mind and erases all distinctions between sender and receiver as well as grammatical subject and object. This unity expresses itself in the lovers’ inexplicable ability to interpret correctly the most arbitrary of messages from one another while misleading those around them. Considering Shakespearean lovers in this context suggests how deeply this model of self-definition and self-abnegation – as well as its foundation in language – penetrated into Elizabethan England and eventually into the work of John Donne. This dissertation explores the social and theological roots of the idea of mystical connections between lovers, as well as the generic conventions that stem from these roots.
Author: G. W. N. Eggers
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1816933574