The Ludic Self in Seventeenth-Century English Literature

This book argues that play offered Hamlet, John Donne, George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, Robert Burton, and Sir Thomas Browne a way to live within the contradictions and conflicts of late Renaissance life by providing a new stance for the self. Grounding its argument in recent theories of play and in a historical analysis that sees the seventeenth century as a point of crisis in the formation of the western self, the author demonstrates how play helped mediate this crisis and how central texts of the period enact this mediation.

About the author

Anna K. Nardo is Professor of English Literature at Louisiana State University. She is the author of Milton's Sonnets and the Ideal Community.

Product details

• Authors: Anna K Nardo, Anna K. Nardo
• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 10.09.1991
• EAN: 9780791407219
• ISBN: 978-0-7914-0721-9
• No. of pages: 263
• Series: Suny Series in Judaica; Suny Series, the Margins of Li; Suny Series in Judaica
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies; Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education