The Model of Poesy
information about the edition ... links to further resources ... corrigenda and addenda ... and further thoughts ...
The Model of Poesy is one of the most exciting literary discoveries of recent years. A manuscript treatise on poetics written by William Scott in 1599, at the end of the most revolutionary decade in English literary history, it includes rich discussions of the works of Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, and their contemporaries. Scott's work presents a powerful and coherent theoretical account of all aspects of poetics, from the nature of representation to the rules of versification, with a commitment to relating theory to contemporary practice. For Scott, any theory of literature must make sense not of the classics but of what English writers are doing now: Scott is at the same time the most scholarly and the most relevant of English Renaissance critics. In his groundbreaking Cambridge University Press edition, Gavin Alexander presents a text of The Model of Poesy framed by a detailed introduction and an extensive commentary, which together demonstrate the range and value of Scott's thought. This blog aims to supplement the edition.
Wednesday 20 January 2016
sundry shapes
Friday 4 December 2015
this clew of discipline
A wonderful article by Michael Hetherington, '"AN INSTRUMENT OF REASON": WILLIAM SCOTT'S LOGICAL POETICS", has just been published in The Review of English Studies. Hetherington deepens our understanding of Scott's use of logic to construct and order his thinking and its presentation in the Model, showing how he draws on the texts and teachings of important logicians such as Melanchthon and Zabarella but also how Scott exemplifies 'precisely that fusion of contemporary discourses and approaches we should expect from a well-read non-specialist of the period.' I especially enjoyed the discussion of Scott's use of the ordo resolutivus (logically treating an art in terms of its end), and the concluding account of Scott's idea of poetic creativity and its implications for our understanding of contemporary literary culture. As Hetherington puts it: 'Scott’s logic ... commits him to a certain model of the mind, and propels him towards thoughtful and innovative accounts of creativity. While Scott draws extensively on Aristotle’s Poetics, an equally profound Aristotelianism—embodying an implicit poetics of its own—emerges from his use of the whole logical, metaphysical and ethical matrix of Aristotle’s works and his early modern interlocutors.'
Thursday 9 July 2015
the diversity of the subject
Scott's Model is the subject of a special issue of Sidney Journal, featuring essays by Gavin Alexander, Sarah Howe, Peter Auger, Christian Anton Gerard, and Stuart Farley, a shorter note by Russ McDonald, and a review of the edition by Donald Stump. See left for the contents page of Sidney Journal, 33.1 (2015).
Tuesday 26 November 2013
beyond the seas
Sunday 3 November 2013
reddendo
The edition was published in the UK on 10 October 2013 and will be available in the US in November 2013. The C.U.P. website includes some generous selections from the edition as well as hosting my original spelling edition of the unique manuscript of Scott's treatise. Follow the links on the right of this page.
Do let me know what you think of Scott and of the edition, and please do point out any errors, however small!
Do let me know what you think of Scott and of the edition, and please do point out any errors, however small!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)