Robert W. Hanning
Published: 2010
Total Pages: 308
Get eBook
In this thoughtful, scholarly, often humorous analysis of literary works--including Ovid's amatory poetry, excerpts from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and Ariosto's Orlando Furioso--Hanning (emer., Columbia Univ.) presents a raucous account of misdirected desire and mismanaged political authority. The author describes his readings as "appreciations" that interrogate "how these privileged individuals, writing basically for elite audiences, make comedy out of two very dangerous topics, desire and authority." The success of these celebrated writers stems from their ability to negotiate the "tensions between private and public imperatives." Hanning argues that his book is not a "scholarly work" and that his target audience is not academics. To the extent that the book is genuinely funny he succeeds, at least hypothetically, but the overall analysis is sophisticated, critically informed, and occasionally tendentious and political. His pose as elucidator and commentator is both an attraction--the tone and tenor of the book are inviting and approachable--and a distracting comic ruse in and of itself, as if a mock-serious disavowal of the academic mode could disguise the very serious re-visioning of cultures (ancient, modern, and contemporary) that takes place here. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty. Graduate Students; Researchers/Faculty. Reviewed by D. Pesta.