Includes bibliographical references (pages 227-231) and index.
Contents:
Introduction: ideas of literary tradition -- Petrarch, scholarship, and traditions of love poetry -- Chaucer and Boccaccio's Il Filostrato -- Renaissance epics: Ariosto, Tasso, and Spenser -- Reading and community as a support for the new in Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton -- European and African literary traditions in Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's Wizard of the Crow -- Conclusion: writers' and readers' traditions.
Summary:
"In literary and cultural studies, "tradition" is a word everyone uses but few address critically. In Reading Old Books, Pter Mack offers a wide-ranging exploration of the creative power of literary exploration of the creative power of literary tradition, from the middle ages to the twenty-first century, revealing in new ways how it helps writers and readers make new works and meanings."--Dust jacket.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.