At zero point
Subtitle: discourse, culture, and satire in Restoration England
By: Rose A. Zimbardo.
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Lexington, Ky
Language: eng
Number of pages: 203
Subjects: Satire, English -- History and criticism.; English literature -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism.; Semiotics and literature -- England -- History -- 17th century.; Language and culture -- England -- History -- 17th century.; Discourse analysis, Literary.; Great Britain -- History -- Restoration, 1660-1688.
Description: Rose Zimbardo's hypothesis is based on Hans Blumenberg's concept of "zero point" - the moment when an epistemology collapses under the weight of questions it has itself raised and simultaneously a new epistemology begins to construct itself. Zimbardo demonstrates that the Restoration marked both the collapse of the Renaissance order and the birth of modernism (with its new conceptions of self, nation, gender, language, logic, subjectivity, and reality).

Zimbardo examines works by Rochester, Oldham, Wycherley, and the early Swift for examples of Restoration deconstructive satire that, she argues, measure the collapse of Renaissance epistemology. Constructive satire, as exemplified in works by Dryden, has at its discursive center the "I" from which all order arises to be projected to the external world.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [172]-189) and index.