The Renaissance was the Ruin-naissance, the birth of the ruin as a distinct category of cultural discourse, one that inspired voluminous poetic production. For humanists, the ruin became the material sign that marked the rupture between themselves and classical antiquity. In the first full-length book to document this cultural phenomenon, Andrew Hui explains how the invention of the ruin propelled poets into creating works that were self-aware of their absorption of the past as well as their own survival in the future.

About the Author
Andrew Hui is Assistant Professor of Humanities at Yale-NUS College, Singapore.

Reviews
"Written with a lucid, elegant sensibility and profound erudition, this study interprets anew the shifts in meaning and value of ruins from classical Latin, to the Romance languages, to English lyrics. At the heart of his analysis Hui uncovers and probes the central problems raised by thinkers on the archeology of ruins: the inner relation between literature and ruins, the ethics of finitude they embody, their future, and the place of ruins at the new beginnings of history. My mind expands as I read it, and I can easily predict others will respond the same way." -- -Giuseppe Mazzotta Sterling Professor in the Humanities for Italian, Yale University



Book Information
ISBN 9780823274314
Author Andrew Hui
Format Paperback
Page Count 296
Imprint Fordham University Press
Publisher Fordham University Press