Newest annual volume of selected essays on aspects of the Renaissance.
Renaissance Papers
is a collection of the best scholarly essays on all aspects of the Renaissance submitted each year to the Southeastern Renaissance Conference, organized originally in the early 1950s by scholars at Duke Universityand the universities of North and South Carolina. This year's annual volume, the forty-sixth to be published by the Conference and the fourth by Camden House, is the most substantial ever, containing twelve articles. Five articles on Shakespeare range from alchemy and hermaphroditism in Sonnet 20 to Leontes and skepticism in
The Winter's Tale
. There are two pieces on Milton, one involving his feminine representation of himself as author, the other attempting a breakthrough in interpretation of
Samson Agonistes
. There are also literary studies of
Mucedorus
, the most popular play in the English Renaissance, and of Spenser's two female protagonists, Britomart and Amoret. There are also an examination of the power struggles in an Italian convent, a new assessment of Stephen Gardiner's role in the Counter-Reformation in England, and a study of the early characteristics of Cromwellin the press of the English Civil War.