04293nam 22007935 450 991014958020332120211005220530.00-8232-7266-40-8232-7268-010.1515/9780823272686(CKB)3710000000934842(DE-B1597)555105(DE-B1597)9780823272686(OCoLC)961105731(MiAaPQ)EBC4747960(EXLCZ)99371000000093484220200723h20172017 fg engur|||||||||||txtrdacontentcrdamediacrrdacarrierFutile Pleasures Early Modern Literature and the Limits of Utility /Corey McEleneyNew York, NY : Fordham University Press, [2017]©20171 online resource (256 p.)Frontmatter -- Contents -- Futilitarianism: An Introduction -- 1. Pleasure without Profit -- 2. Bonfire of the Vanities -- 3. Art for Nothing’s Sake -- 4. Spenser’s Unhappy Ends -- 5. Beyond Sublimation -- Coda: Less Matter, More Art -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index Honorable Mention, 2018 MLA Prize for a First BookAgainst the defensive backdrop of countless apologetic justifications for the value of literature and the humanities, Futile Pleasures reframes the current conversation by returning to the literary culture of early modern England, a culture whose defensive posture toward literature rivals and shapes our own.During the Renaissance, poets justified the value of their work on the basis of the notion that the purpose of poetry is to please and instruct, that it must be both delightful and useful. At the same time, many of these writers faced the possibility that the pleasures of literature may be in conflict with the demand to be useful and valuable. Analyzing the rhetoric of pleasure and the pleasure of rhetoric in texts by William Shakespeare, Roger Ascham, Thomas Nashe, Edmund Spenser, and John Milton, McEleney explores the ambivalence these writers display toward literature’s potential for useless, frivolous vanity. Tracing that ambivalence forward to the modern era, this book also shows how contemporary critics have recapitulated Renaissance humanist ideals about aesthetic value. Against a longstanding tradition that defensively advocates for the redemptive utility of literature, Futile Pleasures both theorizes and performs the queer pleasures of futility. Without ever losing sight of the costs of those pleasures, McEleney argues that playing with futility may be one way of moving beyond the impasses that modern humanists, like their early modern counterparts, have always faced.English literatureEarly modern, 1500-1700History and criticismLiterature and societyEnglandHistory16th centuryLiterature and societyEnglandHistory17th centuryPleasure in literatureSenses and sensation in literatureRenaissance Literaturedeconstructionfutilitypleasurequeer theoryromancevanitySOCIAL SCIENCE / Gender StudiesbisacshRenaissance Literature.deconstruction.futility.pleasure.queer theory.romance.vanity.English literatureHistory and criticism.Literature and societyHistoryLiterature and societyHistoryPleasure in literature.Senses and sensation in literature.Renaissance Literature.deconstruction.futility.pleasure.queer theory.romance.vanity.SOCIAL SCIENCE / Gender Studies.820.9/003McEleney Corey, authttp://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut772254DE-B1597DE-B1597BOOK9910149580203321Futile pleasures1576519UNINA