By Jean H. Hagstrum (NHC Fellow, 1985–86; 1986–87) A magisterial book by one of our most distinguished literary historians, Esteem Enlivened by Desire illuminates (and celebrates) the ideal of lasting love from antiquity to the high Renaissance. Love that leads to marriage is a relatively recent "invention," or so critics and historians often say. But in this … Continued
By John N. King (NHC Fellow, 1997–98) This book was first published in 2006. Second only to the Bible and Book of Common Prayer, John Foxe's Acts and Monuments, known as the Book of Martyrs, was the most influential book published in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The most complex and best-illustrated English … Continued
Edited by Jeff Love (NHC Fellow, 2014–15) Heidegger’s influence in the twentieth century probably outstrips that of any other philosopher, at least in the so-called Continental tradition. The 'revolution' Heidegger brought about with his compelling readings of the broader philosophical tradition transformed German philosophy and spread quickly to most of Europe, the United States and … Continued
By Ruth Nisse (NHC Fellow, 2005–06) Jewish and Christian authors of the High Middle Ages not infrequently came into dialogue or conflict with each other over traditions drawn from ancient writings outside of the bible. Circulating in Latin and Hebrew adaptations and translations, these included the two independent versions of the Testament of Naphtali in … Continued
By John Sitter (NHC Fellow, 1978–79) Studying the poetry, fiction, and nonfiction of the mid-eighteenth century, Sitter attempts to characterize the authors' shared pursuits and preoccupations. He focuses on what he calls literary loneliness—the emerging concept of the isolated writer who creates for a solitary reader, a writer who strives for a "pure poetry" unconnected … Continued
Edited by Ruth Morse (NHC Fellow, 2012–13), Helen Cooper, and Peter Holland For many, Shakespeare represents the advent of modernity. It is easy to forget that he was in fact a writer deeply embedded in the Middle Ages, who inherited many of his shaping ideas and assumptions from the medieval past. This collection brings together … Continued
By Gretchen Murphy (NHC Fellow, 2018–19) Drawing on literature, correspondence, sermons, legal writing, and newspaper publishing, this book offers a new account women’s political participation and the process of religious disestablishment. Scholars have long known that eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American women wrote pious, sentimental stories, but this book uses biographical and archival methods to understand … Continued
By Barbara Weiden Boyd (NHC Fellow, 2014–15) This book is the first extended modern study of the Latin poet Ovid’s Homeric intertextuality. Ovid’s relationship with the Homeric poems is shown to be neither occasional nor simply incidental; rather, careful and creative readings of the abundant evidence of Ovid’s career-long engagement with the Iliad and the … Continued
By Lewis Leary (NHC Fellow, 1978–79)
By Joseph Luzzi (NHC Fellow, 2004–05) In this groundbreaking study, unique in English, Joseph Luzzi considers Italian Romanticism and the modern myth of Italy. Ranging across European and international borders, he examines the metaphors, facts, and fictions about Italy that were born in the Romantic age and continue to haunt the global literary imagination. The … Continued