Howard Weinbrot and the Precincts of Enlightenment - by Kevin L Cope (Hardcover)

About the Book

This collection opens a panorama of essays celebrating diverse ways to participate in the British-and international-Enlightenment. Investigating major authors, unusual persons, commentators on other nations, scholars, and even early environmentalists, this volume explores the ...

Book Synopsis

Seeking to honor and extend the critical legacy of Howard Weinbrot, this volume re-examines, rebuilds, and upgrades the most prominent pillars of long eighteenth-century scholarship. The collection is divided into four thematic sections, beginning with a series of chapters offering fresh analyses of Swift, Dryden, Hogarth, and other major authors and artists of the period. In the sections that follow, the contributors not only explore biographies of both highly esteemed figures and notorious deviants, but also investigate the very concept of Enlightenment as it has evolved from the eighteenth century to today. The final section features chapters that probe the complex interaction of identity, persona, and place, traversing the countless locales in which the British--and the international--eighteenth century emerged. The volume ultimately covers a range of experience that extends from the gallows to the landscape garden and from heroic antiquity to Romantic-era France. Juxtaposing the local and particular against the grand and universal, Howard Weinbrot and the Precincts of Enlightenment testifies to the complexity and ongoing significance of eighteenth-century culture.

Review Quotes

"This abundant collection of essays makes a significant contribution to eighteenth-century studies by exploring both the works of major authors and other diverse and fascinating topics including canon formation, horticultural practice, and English perceptions of the Russian court. Many of the essays within it are as tenaciously detailed and thorough as the scholarship of Howard Weinbrot himself, and the whole a fitting tribute to his powerful and capacious mind." --Adam Rounce, University of Nottingham

"This important volume examines key topics in the eighteenth century, offering insightful analyses of the arts, biography, literary history, and other cultural arenas. Written in a variety of modes and methodologies, the essays all bear witness to the intellectual breadth and scholarly legacy of Howard Weinbrot, a towering figure in eighteenth-century studies." --David Radcliffe, Virginia Tech University

This abundant collection of essays makes a significant contribution to eighteenth-century studies by exploring both the works of major authors and other diverse and fascinating topics including canon formation, horticultural practice, and English perceptions of the Russian court. Many of the essays within it are as tenaciously detailed and thorough as the scholarship of Howard Weinbrot himself, and the whole a fitting tribute to his powerful and capacious mind.

This important volume examines key topics in the eighteenth century, offering insightful analyses of the arts, biography, literary history, and other cultural arenas. Written in a variety of modes and methodologies, the essays all bear witness to the intellectual breadth and scholarly legacy of Howard Weinbrot, a towering figure in eighteenth-century studies.

About the Author

Kevin L. Cope is the Robert and Rita Wetta Adams Professor of English at Louisiana State University.