By Cleanth Brooks (NHC Fellow, 1978–79; 1979–80; 1980–81) This series of case studies examines the degree and extent to which some dozen particular seventeenth-century poems deal with the history of the time out of which they came.
By Howard Erskine-Hill (NHC Fellow, 1988–89) This is a major study of the relation between poetry and politics in sixteenth and seventeenth-century English literature, focusing in particular on the works of Spenser, Shakespeare, Jonson, Milton, and Dryden. Taking issue with the traditional concept of the political poem and with recent New Historicist criticism, Erskine-Hill argues … Continued
By Keith P. Luria (NHC Fellow, 2000–01) Religious rivalry and persecution have bedeviled so many societies that confessional difference often seems an unavoidable source of conflict. Sacred Boundaries challenges this assumption by examining relations between the Catholic majority and Protestant minority in seventeenth-century France as a case study of two religious groups constructing confessional difference and coexistence. … Continued
By Patricia Waddy (NHC Fellow, 1984–85) "Buildings have lives in time," observes Patricia Waddy in this pioneering study of the relation between plan and use in the palaces of the Borghese, Barberini, and Chigi families. Waddy reconstructs what was done at precise moments in a building's life, relating these acts of building to the needs … Continued
In 1691, this notorious episode in the history of early New England began to unfold in a small rural neighborhood on the outskirts of Salem town, then the second-largest seaport in Massachusetts Bay Colony. Several adolescent girls in Salem Village began to exhibit strange and alarming symptoms that some of their parents quickly came to … Continued
In 1630 the Puritans brought their dynamic faith to the New World. Within a few years their skill in self-government and their refusal to tolerate dissent created a remarkably unified colony, a “Bible Commonwealth.” What were their religious beliefs? How did they practice them? What appeal did their faith hold for believers, and how did … Continued