Genres and Ancient Greece in the English Renaissance

FAIN: FB-52718-06

Tanya Pollard
Montclair State University (Montclair, NJ 07043-1600)

Studies of the influence of the classics on the English Renaissance have focused on the transmission of characters, plots, and motifs from Latin literature. In this project, I plan to examine a crucial area that they have missed: the impact of ancient Greece, and especially literary genres associated with Athenian democracy, on the Renaissance imagination. Through examining early modern literary critics alongside plays, poems, and social contexts, I will join formalist attention to generic conventions with historicist emphasis on cultural change. By imitating and adapting Greek genres, writers imported the political and social ideas that accompanied them, with significant consequences for London's literary and civic development.