The Unrepentant Renaissance: From Petrarch to Shakespeare to Milton

by Richard Strier

Who during the Renaissance could have dissented from the values of reason and restraint, patience and humility, rejection of the worldly and the physical? These widely articulated values were part of the inherited Christian tradition and were reinforced by key elements in the Renaissance, especially the revival of Stoicism and Platonism. This book is devoted to those who did dissent from them. Richard Strier reveals that many long-recognized major texts did question the most traditional values and uncovers a Renaissance far more bumptious and affirmative than much recent scholarship has allowed.
The Unrepentant Renaissance counters the prevalent view of the period as dominated by the regulation of bodies and passions, aiming to reclaim the Renaissance as an era happily churning with surprising, worldly, and self-assertive energies. Reviving the perspective of Jacob Burckhardt and Nietzsche, Strier provides fresh and uninhibited readings of texts by Petrarch, More, Shakespeare, Ignatius Loyola, Montaigne, Descartes, and Milton. Strier's lively argument will stir debate throughout the field of Renaissance studies.

Genres: History

328 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2011

Reviews

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite liked this, especially the bits about Richard III, Macbeth, King Lear, Thomas More’s Utopia, and Montaigne.

[Aurelio Guerra · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 hour read.
I struggled a bit with the relevance of the topics of some of the chapters, so I had to go back and make sure I didn't miss the point. Mostly I didn't. Despite the fact that literature follows the Horatian platitude of the dulce et utile, we know it's usually a ruse or a mask. Medieval authors often wallow in vice-laden stories, but always, so those authors cautiously say, as cautionary tales. Renaissance authors must have been more constrained than their medieval precursors since they were forced, ideologically at least, by the mores of the times as well as by the imperative to convey some elevated classic-like life lesson.
But, fortunately, the Unrepentant Renaissance is unrepentant in that sense. This book doesn't want to teach us that the renaissance writers often callously praised anti-virtues; instead, it deals with some of these literary amorality topics, themes, motifs as slices of human desires and experiences.
Stylistically, I really enjoyed the slick manner in which Strier debated with other critics, but I did find it at times bothersome that, unapologetically perhaps, he always had to have the upper hand.

[Random Anonymous Pseudonym* · Rating 5 out of 5]

'The Unrepentant Renaissance' is an exemplary work of literary criticism. Combining scholarly rigour and originality with subtle touches of humour and insightful readings of canonical and sometimes difficult texts, Richard Strier's book is a well-written and eminently readable account of the Renaissance that successfully opposes some predominant lines of scholarship but which depend on assumptions that sometimes go unchallenged. The book includes carefully arranged and extensive footnotes that deftly elucidate the main arguments and offer a valuable survey of current research on the field. For me, its highlights include its discussions of Petrarch, Thomas More, Milton, Shakespeare's sonnets and the Reformation. This is 21st century literary criticism at its best and will leave the reader feeling completely unrepentant.