No island is an island
Subtitle: four glances at English literature in a world perspective
By: Carlo Ginzburg ; introduction translated by John Tedeschi.
Series: Italian Academy lectures
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2000
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 121
Subjects: Sterne, Laurence, 1713-1768.; More, Thomas, Sir, Saint, 1478-1535.; Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894 -- Influence.; Malinowski, Bronislaw, 1884-1942.; English literature -- History and criticism.; English literature -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism.; Difference (Psychology) in literature.; Identity (Psychology) in literature.; Literature and anthropology.; Utopias -- Great Britain.
Description: "In No Island Is an Island, an internationally renowned historian approaches four works of English literature from unexpected angles. Following in the footsteps of a sixteenth-century Spanish bishop we gain a fresh view of Thomas More's Utopia. Comparing Bayle's Dictionary with Tristram Shandy we suddenly enter into Laurence Sterne's mind. A seemingly narrow dispute among Elizabethan critics for and against rhyme turns into an early debate on English national identity.

Robert Louis Stevenson's story "The Bottle Imp" throws a new light on Bronislaw Malinowsky's attempts to discover meaning in the "kula" trading system among the Trobriand Islanders. Throughout, Ginsburg's inquiry is informed by his unique microhistorical sensibility, his attention to minute detail, and his extraordinary synthesizing imagination."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The old world and the new seen from nowhere; title: Selfhood and otherness: constructing English identity in the Elizabethan age; title: A search for origins: rereading Tristram Shandy; title: Tusitala and his Polish reader.