ECU Libraries Catalog

Love against substitution : seventeenth-century English literature and the meaning of marriage / Eric B. Song.

Author/creator Song, Eric B., 1979- author.
Format Book and Print
Publication Info Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2022]
Copyright Notice ̐u2022
Descriptionx, 323 pages ; 23 cm.
Subject(s)
Series Cultural memory in the present
Cultural memory in the present. ^A403800
Contents Beguiling love in the Amoretti and the 1590 Faerie queene -- Jealousy against substitution in Othello and The winter's tale -- Gondibert and the biopolitics of marriage -- Love against succession in Paradise lost -- Lucy Hutchinson and the imperfection of Christian marriage -- From remarriage to tragic fungibility : Behn's The forc'd marriage and Oroonoko.
Abstract "Are we unique as individuals, or are we replaceable? Seventeenth-century English literature pursues these questions through depictions of marriage. The writings studied in this book elevate a love between two individuals who deem each other to be unique to the point of being irreplaceable and this vocabulary allows writers to put affective pressure on the meaning of marriage as Pauline theology defines it. Stubbornly individual, love threatens to short-circuit marriage's function in directing intimate feelings toward a corporate experience of Christ's love. The literary project of testing the meaning of marriage proved to be urgent work throughout the seventeenth century. Monarchy itself was put on trial in this century, and so was the usefulness of marriage in linking Christian belief with the legitimacy of hereditary succession. Starting at the end of the sixteenth century with Edmund Spenser, and then exploring works by William Shakespeare, William Davenant, John Milton, Lucy Hutchinson, and Aphra Behn, Eric Song offers a new account of how notions of unique personhood became embedded in a literary way of thinking and feeling about marriage"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references and index.
Genre/formCriticism, interpretation, etc.
LCCN 2021038420
ISBN9781503631403
ISBN9781503630444 (cloth)
ISBN1503630447 (cloth)
ISBN1503631400 (paperback)
ISBN(ebook)

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