Research Catalog

Title

Walton's Lives : conformist commemorations and the rise of biography / Jessica Martin.

Author

Martin, Jessica, 1963-

Publication

Oxford [England] ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2001.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xxi, 353 pages : illustrations; 23 cm

Summary

• "This book argues that Izaak Walton's practice, in his Lives, was crucial in shaping modern expectations of biography: how it should be organised, how it should treat evidence, how seriously it should regard narrative coherence, and most particularly in the modern expectation of an intimate relationship between author, reader, and subject. Dr.
• Martin considers Walton's biographical ethics in relation to the tributary genres influencing him as they emerged from post Reformation commendatory practice after 1546, most particularly classical funeral oratory and the emergent Protestant funeral sermon, the Plutarchan parallel, the didactic Character, martyrological narrative, and finally Walton's direct model, the exemplary biographical commemoration of the conformist minister."
• "Dr. Martin considers how Walton develops his literary inheritance, arguing that his lay status required him to initiate a different kind of mediation between reader and subject from the straightforwardly imitative. Walton presents himself as a channel for the words and acts of an authoritative subject, a preference implicitly followed both in his stress on personal connections with his subjects (which spectacularly particularizes his portraits) and in his very extensive use of their own writings. His Lives attempt posthumous autobiography.
• They are also considered as prominent and accomplished examples of the many politically intended narratives which exploit a consensual interpretation of private virtue to support, without having to argue for, a sectarian interpretation of public rectitude."--Jacket.

Subject

• Walton, Izaak, 1593-1683
• Wotton, Henry, Sir, 1568-1639
• Hooker, Richard, 1553 or 1554-1600
• Sanderson, Robert, 1587-1663
• Herbert, George, 1593-1633
• Donne, John, 1572-1631
• Donne, John, 1572-1631
• Herbert, George, 1593-1633
• Hooker, Richard, 1553 or 1554-1600
• Sanderson, Robert, 1587-1663
• Wotton, Henry, Sir, 1568-1639
• Walton, Izaak 1593-1683
• Walton, Izaak
• Biography as a literary form
• Biographies as Topic
• biographies (literary works)
• Biography
• Biografieforschung
• Biografieën
• Biografen
• Great Britain > Biography > History and criticism
• Great Britain

Genre/Form

• Biography
• Biographies.
• Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [316]-337) and index.

Contents

Introduction -- List of illustrations -- Note on terminology -- Note on texts and orthography -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- -- -- PART I. WALTON'S CONTEXT -- 1. Commemorative strategies -- 2. Reading Plutarch, writing Lives -- -- Plutarch as 'schoolemaister' -- -- Plutarchan virtue and the constant mind -- -- Portraying virtue -- -- Collection, comparison, and parallel -- 3. Godly prototypes -- -- Texts -- -- Bodies -- -- Death -- -- 'Life, truly writ' -- PART II. WALTON'S LIVES -- 4. Walton's Lives of Donne and Herbert -- -- The Life of Dr. John Donne -- -- The Life of Mr. George Herbert -- 5. Walton's Lives of Hooker and Sanderson -- -- Introduction -- -- The Life of Mr. Richard Hooker -- -- The Life of Dr. Robert Sanderson -- 6. Walton's legacy -- -- -- Bibliography -- Index.

ISBN

• 0198270151
• 9780198270157
• 9780191683930
• 0191683930

LCCN

2001016288

OCLC

• ocm45750255
• 45750255
• SCSB-14048349

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library