Ryan Netzley – författare

Reevaluates early modern poems of praise as, paradoxically, challenging an artistic economy that values exchange and productivityEarly modern poems of praise typically insist that they do not have a purpose or enact real labor beyond their effortless listing of laudable qualities. And yet the poets discussed in this study, including Ben Jonson, Andrew Marvell, Anne Bradstreet, Lucy Hutchinson, and John Milton, hint at an alternative aesthetic economy at work in their verse. Poetic praise, it turns out, might show us a social world outside the organizing principle of exchange.In Economies of Praise: Value, Labor, and Form in Seventeenth‑Century English Poetry, Ryan Netzley explores how poems of praise imagine alternatives to market and gift economies and point instead to a self-contained aesthetic economy that works against a more expansive and productivist understanding of literary art. By depicting exchange as inconsequential, unproductive, and redundant rather than a necessary constituent of social order, these poems model for modern readers a world without the imperative to create, appraise, and repeatedly demonstrate one’s own value.

What's new about the apocalypse? Revelation does not allow us to look back after the end and enumerate pivotal turning points. It happens in an immediate encounter with the transformatively new.John Milton's and Andrew Marvell's lyrics attempt to render the experience of such an apocalyptic change in the present. In this respect they take seriously the Reformation's insistence that eschatology is a historical phenomenon. Yet these poets are also reacting to the Regicide, and, as a result, their works explore very modern questions about the nature of events, what it means for a significant historical occasion to happen.Lyric Apocalypse argues that Milton's and Marvell's lyrics challenge any retrospective understanding of events, including one built on a theory of revolution. Instead, these poems show that there is no "after" to the apocalypse, that if we are going to talk about change, we should do so in the present, when there is still time to do something about it. For both of these poets, lyric becomes a way to imagine an apocalyptic event that would be both hopeful and new.

The courtly love tradition had a great influence on the themes of religious poetry-just as an absent beloved could be longed for passionately, so too could a distant God be the subject of desire. But when authors began to perceive God as immanently available, did the nature and interpretation of devotional verse change? Ryan Netzley argues that early modern religious lyrics presented both desire and reading as free, loving activities, rather than as endless struggles or dramatic quests.Reading, Desire, and the Eucharist analyzes the work of prominent early modern writers-including John Milton, Richard Crashaw, John Donne, and George Herbert-whose religious poetry presented parallels between sacramental desire and the act of understanding written texts. Netzley finds that by directing devotees to crave spiritual rather than worldly goods, these poets questioned ideas not only of what people should desire, but also how they should engage in the act of yearning. Challenging fundamental assumptions of literary criticism, Reading, Desire, and the Eucharist shows how poetry can encourage love for its own sake, rather than in the hopes of salvation.

The courtly love tradition had a great influence on the themes of religious poetry-just as an absent beloved could be longed for passionately, so too could a distant God be the subject of desire. But when authors began to perceive God as immanently available, did the nature and interpretation of devotional verse change? Ryan Netzley argues that early modern religious lyrics presented both desire and reading as free, loving activities, rather than as endless struggles or dramatic quests.Reading, Desire, and the Eucharist analyzes the work of prominent early modern writers-including John Milton, Richard Crashaw, John Donne, and George Herbert-whose religious poetry presented parallels between sacramental desire and the act of understanding written texts. Netzley finds that by directing devotees to crave spiritual rather than worldly goods, these poets questioned ideas not only of what people should desire, but also how they should engage in the act of yearning. Challenging fundamental assumptions of literary criticism, Reading, Desire, and the Eucharist shows how poetry can encourage love for its own sake, rather than in the hopes of salvation.

The essays in Lyric Temporalities explore poetry’s depictions and conceptions of time. Whether claiming to immortalize its addressees, worrying over time’s passage and the misspent youth of lovers, or testifying to the fleeting nature of the sounds it nonetheless seeks to preserve, the lyric has for millennia adopted temporality as a central subject and theme, as well as a self-conscious examination of its own form. The contributors to this volume show how these pivotal generic and historical elements operate across periods: in allusion and translation, in memories of what constitutes a legible selfhood, and even in speculation about what non-human timescales (large or small) might look like. This collection also reveals that lyric neither simply opposes itself to the temporal unfolding of narrative nor stands in for presentness or heightened emotional sensation. Rather, it makes possible a reimagining of how we exist complexly in time by performing a surprisingly dynamic range of temporal operations. Lyric Temporalities challenges critical presuppositions about the durational processes of poetic encounter and the linearity of empirical experience.

The essays in Lyric Temporalities explore poetry's depictions and conceptions of time. Whether claiming to immortalize its addressees, worrying over time's passage and the misspent youth of lovers, or testifying to the fleeting nature of the sounds it nonetheless seeks to preserve, the lyric has for millennia adopted temporality as a central subject and theme, as well as a self-conscious examination of its own form. The contributors to this volume show how these pivotal generic and historical elements operate across periods: in allusion and translation, in memories of what constitutes a legible selfhood, and even in speculation about what non-human timescales (large or small) might look like. This collection also reveals that lyric neither simply opposes itself to the temporal unfolding of narrative nor stands in for presentness or heightened emotional sensation. Rather, it makes possible a reimagining of how we exist complexly in time by performing a surprisingly dynamic range of temporal operations. Lyric Temporalities challenges critical presuppositions about the durational processes of poetic encounter and the linearity of empirical experience.