| Excess and the Mean in Early Modern English Literature Subjects: Ethics in literature.; Polarity in literature.; Temperance in literature.; English literature; Didactic literature English; Literature and society; Literature and society; Moderation in literature.; English literature; This book examines how English writers from the Elizabethan period to the Restoration transformed and contested the ancient ideal of the virtuous mean. As early modern authors learned at grammar school and university, Aristotle and other classical thinkers praised "golden means" balanced between extremes: courage, for example, as opposed to cowardice or recklessness. By uncovering the enormous variety of English responses to this ethical doctrine, Joshua Scodel revises our understanding of the vital interaction between classical thought and early modern literary culture. Joshua Scodel is Professor of English, Comparative Literature, and the Humanities at the University of Chicago. He is the author of The English Poetic Epitaph: Commemoration and Conflict from Jonson to Wordsworth and has published numerous articles on various aspects of Renaissance literature. |