Reconsidering the Renaissance: Papers from the Twenty-first Annual Conference

Culled from the Twenty-First Annual Conference of Medieval and Renaissance Texts & Studies, the thirty-one selected papers which comprise the volume address a variety of subjects related to the study of early modern Europe. True to its title, the articles are dedicated to reconsidering the concept "Renaissance" in all its forms.

The volume is organized in a generally chronological order, addressing various topics of the early and high Italian Renaissance ranging from spas in their sociocultural context, humanism and the history of thought, literature, and art. This is followed by forays to sixteenth-century England and France, before returning to late sixteenth-century Italy with Torquato Tasso. At this point the focus shifts to considerations of rhetoric, poetry and print in the English Renaissance, various aspects of Shakespeare, John Donne, George Herbert, before culminating with a series of papers on Milton.