STUDIES IN 'THE OTHER HARMONY': PROSE GENRES IN THE LATER ENGLISH RENAISSANCE

This dissertation establishes a context in Renaissance literary theory and practice for the study of generic form in seventeenth-century nonfiction prose. The Introduction analyzes the problems in this study as well as defines the principles on which genre criticism is based, identifying both its usefulness and its potential dangers as an approach to literary study. Chapter I, then, focuses on Renaissance literary theory specifically. Of particular interest are those issues suggesting a relaxed sense of the distinctions between prose and poetry as types of literary expression. The debate over the necessity of verse in poetry broadly defined; the various understandings of the doctrine of imitation; the rise of Platonic concepts of literary art; and the influence of rhetorical standards on literature are among those issues. Chapter I examines this critical context as necessary background to the study of prose genres.;Recovering from these sources a system of generic principles for prose is primarily a historical endeavor, but it is also critical. Identifying a genre is not in itself a valuable exercise unless we can apply that model to our understanding of a text. Chapter III, then, analyzes in detail John Donne's Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions as an example of a prose form mixed in kind. Combining the structure of the sermon with the technique of exemplary narrative, Donne's work provides a redefinition of the devotional manual, a generic experiment that at once raises a subliterary genre to a more literary one and illuminates more clearly its devotional purpose.;In the old quarrel between ars and ingenium, it seems to be the fact of experience that ingenium plays a major part; it is equally true that creative activity is influenced by the means of expression available to a writer in his historical period. Ultimately, then, we are making an argument which congratulates a literary culture as much as an individual writer. In the late Renaissance, three main factors in the literary culture contribute to the development of prose genres: the relaxed distinction between prose and poetry as literary types, the attraction of mixed genres, and the tendency in humanist literary theory and practice to raise to the status of art forms never officially recognized in the "rules" for literary composition. The conclusion of this study recapitulates these basic points, using them to direct an analysis of genre in Browne's Urne-Burial. The interplay between these two forces, the dynamic contact between the individual writer and his literary culture, defines the vitality of generic experiments in seventeenth-century nonfiction prose.;The pervasive interest in genre evidenced in all literary discussions of the period combines with the relaxed distinctions between prose and poetry to suggest the operation of generic principles in prose forms. Chapter II examines the Renaissance concepts of genre, paying particular attention to the idea of mixed kinds. Despite the continued interest in prose in the Renaissance, however, the literary theorists only rarely discuss prose forms according to generic principles. Thus, we need to look beyond the formal theoretical discussions in order to determine our generic constructs. For evidence of these generic principles, we must turn to the literature itself. Chapter II continues its analysis of prose genre through an examination of some of those forms actually practiced by the writers of the period: the dialogue, the epistle, and the essay. The attempt here is to develop an understanding of genre applicable to nonfiction prose, a critical definition based on both the theoretical discussions of the period, and the implicit evidence of the literature itself.