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Title Historicizing life-writing and egodocuments in early modern Europe / James R. Farr, Guido Ruggiero, editors
Published Cham, Switzerland : Palgrave Macmillan, 2022

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Description 1 online resource (1 volume) : illustrations (black and white)
Contents 1. Introduction - James Farr and Guido Ruggiero -- 2. The Elusive Self: An Essay - John Jeffries Martin -- 3. The Life Enhancing Value of Life-Writing: On the Uses and Disadvantages of History in Vasari's Lives of Artists - Douglas Biow -- 4. Benvenuto Cellini Magnanimously Corrects the Irritating Ignorance of Life Writers in General and in Regard to My Vita - Guido Ruggiero -- 5. Conversions and Crossing Frontiers: The Lives of Two Spanish Monks - James Ameland -- 6. Everard Nithards Memoria: The Jesuit Confessors Quest for Re-fashioning the Self, People and Events - Silvia Z. Mitchell - 7. Egodocument History and the Diary of Constantijn Huygens, Jr. - Rudolf Dekker -- 8. Dimensions of the Self in Autobiographical Life-Writing: James Boswells Journals and William Hickeys Memoirs - James R. Farr -- 9. Our Letters, Our Lives: Self-Performance as Life-Writing in Italian Renaissance Correspondence - Deanna Shemek -- 10. Writing About the Other in Ones Life: Life-Writing and Egodocuments of King Frederick William I of Prussia (1713-40), Frederick II of Prussia, and Wilhelmina of Bayreuth - Benjamin Marschke -- 11. A Dutch Notary and His Clients - Mary Lindemann -- 12. The Genres and Modes of Early Modern Womens Life-Writing: Anne Clifford and Anne Marie Louise dOrleans - Mihoko Suzuki
Summary This volume historicizes the study of life-writing and egodocuments, focusing on early modern European reflections on the self, self-fashioning, and identity. Life-writing and the study of egodocuments currently tend to be viewed as separate fields, yet the individual as a purposive social actor provides significant common ground and offers a vehicle, both theoretical and practical, for a profitable synthesis of the two in a historical context. Echoing scholars from a wide-range of disciplines who recognize the uncertainty of the nature of the self, these essays question the notion of the autonomous self and the attendant idea of continuous identity unfolding in a unified personality. Instead, they suggest that the early modern self was variable and unstable, and can only be grasped by exploring selves situated in specific historical and social/cultural contexts and revealed through the wide range of historical documents considered here. The three sections of the volume consider: first, the theoretical contexts of understanding egodocuments in early modern Europe; then, the practical ways egodocuments from the period may be used for writing life-histories today; and finally, a wider range of historical documents that might be added to what are usually seen as egodocuments
Notes Print version record
Subject Autobiography -- European authors -- History and criticism
Self (Philosophy) -- Europe -- History -- 16th century
Self (Philosophy) -- Europe -- History -- 17th century
Self (Philosophy)
Europe
Genre/Form Electronic books
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
History
Form Electronic book
Author Farr, James Richard, 1950- editor.
Ruggiero, Guido, 1944- editor.
ISBN 9783030824839
3030824837
9783030824846
3030824845
9783030824853
3030824853