Description

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To refer to Enlightenment tragedy is to teeter on the brink of paradox. The eighteenth century is famous for its celebration and deployment of ideals such as optimism, reason, and human progress—ideals seemingly contradicted by the pessimism and passion of much classical tragedy. Moreover, tragedy in the Enlightenment is also often overlooked in favor of its illustrious seventeenth-century predecessors. In Shadows of the Enlightenment, an assemblage of respected experts specializing in classical, eighteenth-century, comparative, and modernist literary traditions offer a corrective analysis, proving that the Enlightenment was a critical period for tragic drama, during which the signature classical influences of the era coexisted with an emerging modern identity. By analyzing a highly diverse set of works—from Johann Christoph Gottsched to Voltaire to Joanna Baillie—with a rare pan-European scope, the contributors excavate the dynamic, and indeed paradoxical, entanglement of antiquity and modernity encapsulated by Enlightenment tragedy. 

Contributors: Joshua Billings, Logan J. Connors, Adrian Daub, Cécile Dudouyt, James Harriman-Smith, Joseph Harris, Alex Eric Hernandez, Blair Hoxby, Russ Leo, Larry F. Norman, Stefan Tilg

About the Author

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Blair Hoxby is Professor in the Department of English at Stanford University. He is the author of What Was Tragedy? Theory and the Early Modern Canon and the coeditor of Milton in the Long Restoration, among other books.

Praise For…

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“Shadows of the Enlightenment’s most compelling feature is not so much any standalone chapter but the insights that emerge as the chapters intertwine with each other, implicitly and explicitly, across temporal and national bounds … A welcome addition to the ever-growing field of eighteenth-century theatre and performance.” —Daniel Gustafson, Comparative Drama

"The approach the contributors to this collection take to Enlightenment tragedy is, in a word, expansive. Their multilingual scope and careful tracking of the genre’s transition from grand-siècle tragedy to romantic and modernist drama will make this book an invaluable resource for scholars across literary fields." —Pannill Camp, author of The First Frame: Theatre Space in Enlightenment France

“University faculty, students, and scholars across many fields will find Hoxby’s work an immeasurable compilation of critical expertise and specialization about the Enlightenment and particularly, Enlightenment tragedy. The 37-page bibliography following the essays is a treasure, too, and adds to this resourceful and remarkable text.” —Jeffrey Moser, Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature