The Renaissance Dialogue: Literary Dialogue in its Social and Political Contexts, Castiglione to Galileo

by Virginia Cox

Overview

This is a full-length study of the use of the dialogue form in Italy from the early sixteenth century until Galileo. Drawing on a wide range of sources, it examines the characteristics which determined the genre's unrivalled popularity in the period as a vehicle for polemic, debate, technical exposition and comic drama. More than simply an account of the development of an individual literary genre, however, the book is a contribution to the broader social and cultural history of the period. As representations of conversation, miniature dramas of persuasion, the dialogues of the Italian Renaissance constitute an extraordinarily rich - and largely untapped - source of information about the ideals and practice of communication in the early modern age.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521069663
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	07/31/2008
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture , #2
Pages:	252
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

Table of Contents

1. Problems of method; 2. History and invention in the dialogue; 3. The uses of the dialogue in sixteenth-century Italy: celebration and control; 4. The use of dialogue in sixteenth-century Italy: commerce and courtesy; 5. Castiglione's Cortegiano: the dialogue as a drama of doubt; 6. The changing form of the Italian renaissance dialogue; 7. The theory and practice of the dialogue in counter-Reformation Italy; 8. From the 'girevole strada' to the straight and narrow path; 9. From the open dialogue to the closed book.

Editorial Reviews

Review of the hardback: 'This book is of enormous value to Renaissance literary and social historians.' The Times Higher Education Supplement

From the Publisher