Old masters, new subjects
Subtitle: early modern and poststructuralist theories of will
By: Dolora A. Wojciehowski.
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 1995
Place of publication: Stanford, Calif
Language: eng
Number of pages: 260
Subjects: European literature -- Renaissance, 1450-1600 -- History and criticism.; Will in literature.; Religion in literature.
Other titles: Early modern and poststructuralist theories of will
Description: The encounter - sometimes conflict - between traditional Renaissance studies and poststructuralism occasions this book. In it, the author analyzes "old masteries," certain notions of freedom, individualism, and control long associated with the Renaissance, in relation to the ideologies of non-mastery that recur in theory today.

This book has a dual purpose. First, it recontextualizes the debates on freedom and determinism presented by five "masters" - Petrarch, Luther, Loyola, Teresa of Avila, and Galileo - by showing that their paradigmatic discourses on will share a distinct rhetorical strategy. Second, it argues that the dominant critical paradigms of the late twentieth century, while ostensibly rejecting and transcending early modern ideas of subjecthood, actually recast Renaissance debates on freedom and power.

In many ways, the early modern functions as the unconscious of critical theory.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [235]-251) and index.