Commonplace-books were the information-organizers of Early Modern Europe, notebooks of quotations methodically arranged for easy retrieval. From their first introduction to the rudiments of Latin to the specialized studies of their later years, the pupils of humanist schools were trained to use commonplace-books. The common-place book mapped and resourced Renaissance culture's moral thinking, its accepted strategies of argumentation, its rhetoric, and its deployment of knowledge. In this study, Ann Moss investigates the evolution of the commonplace-book from its medieval antecedents, through...

This study provides an entirely new look at an era of radical change in the history of West European thought, the period between 1480 and 1540, mainly in France and Germany. The book's main thesis is that the Latin language turn was not only concurrent with other aspects of change, but was a fundamental instrument in reconfiguring horizons of thought, reformulating paradigms of argument, and rearticulating the relationship between fiction and truth.

This book is a major study of the development of French poetry in the Renaissance, which examines changes in style and vision by looking both at how poetry was read in this period and how it was written. Dr Moss examines vernacular versions of fables from Ovid's Metamorphoses, published between the end of the fifteenth century and beginning of the seventeenth century, which reveal fundamental changes both in reading habits and in assumptions about literary aesthetics and the relationship of literature to truth. Through detailed analysis of mythological narratives in the Ovidian tradition...

Drawing on personal experiences and her research of the transformative changes in a woman's life, Anderson illuminates the rewards of nurturing long-neglected talents, revitalizing plans sacrificed to the demands of family, and stretching toward new possibilities and values. Suffused with her candid introspection and humor, these essays off a panoramic vision of issues that haunt the modern woman. This book means to breathe new life into the reader who longs to be an individual beyond the roles that she plays with the intent to help her emerge from between the covers of Stretch Marks with...