Costly Monuments: Representations of the Self in George Herbert’s Poetry

Barbara Leah Harman

Published by Harvard University Press 1982

Costly Monuments

Representations of the Self in George Herbert’s Poetry

Barbara Leah Harman

https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674497337

Overview
Contents

About this book

In recent years George Herbert's poetry has been analyzed by some of our most distinguished literary critics. Offering close readings of central poems, and insights derived from contemporary literary theory, Barbara Harman takes her place in their company.

She begins by surveying the critical tradition on Herbert's work in our century--from George Herbert Palmer to Stanley Fish. In this penetrating assessment Harman explores the relationship between critical practice and belief.

The impulse toward self-representation is, she argues, a powerful one in Herbert's work, and it is also an impulse thwarted and redesigned in extraordinary ways. In poems Harman calls fictions of coherence and "chronicles of dissolution," speakers both protect and dismantle their own narratives, and because they do they raise questions about the values we attach to stories and about the difficulties we undergo when stories fail to represent us in traditional ways.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
PREFACE Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
INTRODUCTION: THE CRITICAL CONTROVERSY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
part one. FICTIONS OF COHERENCE
chapter 1. "SO DID I WEAVE MY SELF INTO THE SENSE" Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	41
chapter 2. COLLAPSING PERSONAL STORIES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	64
chapter 3. AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND BEYOND Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	89
part two. CHRONICLES OF DISSOLUTION
chapter 4. "NO CONTINUING CITTY" Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	109
chapter 5. THE DISSOLUTION OF BODIES AND STORIES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	138
CONCLUSION: THE BIBLE AS COUNTERTEXT Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	170
NOTES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	197
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Edition: Reprint 2014
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Front matter: 10
- Main content: 225
Keywords: Herbert, George, 1593-1633 -- Criticism and interpretation.; Self in literature.; LITERARY CRITICISM / Poetry; LITERARY CRITICISM / General

eBook

Published: October 1, 2013
ISBN: 9780674497337

Hardcover

Published: February 5, 1982
ISBN: 9780674497320