The Reinvention of Love: Poetry, Politics and Culture from Sidney to Milton

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Cambridge University Press, Nov 11, 1993 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 258 pages
In The Reinvention of Love Anthony Low argues that cultural, economic and political change transformed the way poets from Sidney to Milton thought and wrote about love. Examining the interface between social, political and economic practices and individual psyches, as reflected in literary texts, Professor Low illuminates the connections between material circumstances, perceptions, and ideals. Through detailed readings of the work of Sidney, Donne, Herbert, Crashaw, Carew, and Milton, he shows how from the late sixteenth century poets struggled to replace the older Petrarchan tradition with a form of love in harmony with a changing world, and to reconcile human love and sacred devotion. Donne fled the social world; Carew made new accommodations with it; Milton revised it. For Milton, sacred love, cut off from communal norms, verges on hatred, while married love takes on the burden of assuaging loneliness in a threatening world.

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Contents

Preface page xi
11
the best love
87
loves delicious Fire
108
fresh invention
132
Because wee freely love
158
Haile wedded Love
178
Conclusion
202
Notes
212
Index
251
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