Challenging conventional notions that literary allegorism declined precipitously around 1600, Kenneth Borris reassesses the Renaissance relations between allegory and heroic poetry, particularly in the major texts of Sidney, Spenser and Milton. Through wide-ranging consideration of Homeric and Virgilian reception and its influence on both continental and English literary theory, he shows that allegorical epic tended to double for and displace epic throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Borris offers a fresh approach to the interaction of allegory with literary genres; focusing on epic, he further analyses the distinctive codes and conventions that constituted the generic repertoire of Renaissance allegorical epic poetry. Whereas standard literary history assumes Sidney opposes allegory, and that Milton minimises or rejects it in following Spenser, Borris's detailed readings demonstrate that Sidney and Milton are also major allegorists, and that Spenser remained so even in the latter books of The Faerie Queene. This book was first published in 2000.

Challenging conventional readings of literary allegorism, this book, first published in 2000, reassesses Renaissance relations between allegory and heroic poetry.
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Book Information
ISBN 9780521100090
Author Kenneth Borris
Format Paperback
Page Count 336
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 500g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 19mm