Death and Tenses - Posthumous Presence in Early Modern France

Death and Tenses explores the question of what tense we should use to refer to the dead. Focusing on sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century texts in French and Latin, it compares early modern examples with modern French and English, asking whether changes in more recent beliefs in posthumous survival have led to different tense usage.

List of contents

• Introduction: Inescapable Tense


• Part I. Tense, Death, Survival


• 1: Modern Tenses for the Dead: Towards a Sketch


• 2: The Historiographical Regime of Disentanglement


• 3: Surviving Death in the Early Modern Period


• 4: Early Modern Tenses for the Dead


• Part II. Dying, Burying, Mourning: Tense and Ritual


• 5: Tense and Ritual


• 6: Christ, the Saints, Meditation


• 7: The Eucharist


• 8: From Funeral Sermon to Coronation


• 9: Epitaphs


• 10: Consolation Literature


• Part III. Discursive Remains


• 11: Actions


• 12: Spoken Words


• 13: Written Words


• Part IV. Authors


• 14: Rabelais


• 15: Montaigne


• Conclusion: Breaking Through?


• Bibliography


• Index

About the author

Neil Kenny FBA is Professor of French at the University of Oxford and Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. Previously he taught French at the University of Cambridge and at Queen Mary University of London, having been a Frances A. Yates Fellow at the Warburg Institute. He has written extensively on early modern literature, thought, and culture, especially in France. His previous books include The Uses of Curiosity in Early Modern France and Germany (OUP, 2004) and An Introduction to Sixteenth-Century French Literature and Thought: Other Times, Other Places (London: Duckworth, now Bloomsbury, 2008).

Summary

Death and Tenses explores the question of what tense we should use to refer to the dead. Focusing on sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century texts in French and Latin, it compares early modern examples with modern French and English, asking whether changes in more recent beliefs in posthumous survival have led to different tense usage.

Product details

• Authors: Neil Kenny, Neil (All Souls College Kenny, Kenny Neil
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.08.2020
• EAN: 9780198831150
• ISBN: 978-0-19-883115-0
• No. of pages: 304
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > Romance linguistics / literary studies; French, France, European History, HISTORY / Europe / France, LITERARY CRITICISM / Renaissance, LITERARY CRITICISM / European / French, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / General, 17th century, c 1600 to c 1699, Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700, Historical & comparative linguistics, Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800, Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800, 16th century, c 1500 to c 1599, c 1500 to c 1600, C 1600 To C 1700, Historical and comparative linguistics, Literary studies: c 1400 to c 1600