English Renaissance Literature and Contemporary Theory

PAUL CEFALU is an Associate Professor in the Department of English, Lafayette College, Pennysylvania, USA.

• The Idolatrous State of Exception in John Donne's Poetry and Prose God's Extimacy: Divine Excess and Baroque Monads in the Poetry of Richard Crashaw Tarrying with Chaos: Radical Evil and John Milton's Paradise Lost God beyond Essence: The Event of Love in the Poetry and Prose of Thomas Traherne

'This new work pushes the 'return to religion' into a 'return to theory,' pursued via exegetical and philosophical frameworks firmly located in the period of study, but with their roots and branches leading far wider than any 'contextual' approach could adequately map. In Cefalu's study, engagement with theology brings forward concepts, concerns and modes of reading that are born out of specific historical situations, traumas and debates, but are not reducible to them, modeling a theoretical approach to literature that is hermeneutically grounded in the very stuff of Western literariness (namely, its religious tropes, rhythms, and figures). Cefalu's chosen paradigm for encountering 'the sublime objects of theology' is Lacanian psychoanalysis, in the cultural and ethical spin given to it in the masterful work of Slavoj i ek and other members of the Slovenian school, including Mladen Dolor and Alenka Zupancic. This is a very timely book.' - Julia Reinhard Lupton, Professor of English and Comparative Literature