Paradoxia Epidemica: The Renaissance Tradition of Paradox

Paradoxia Epidemica is a broad-ranging critical study of Renaissance thought, showing how the greatest writers of the period from Erasmus and Rabelais to Donne, Milton, and Shakespeare made conscious use of paradox not only as a figure of speech but as a mode of thought, a way of perceiving the universe, God, nature, and man himself. The book consists of an introduction (historical and topological) and sixteen chapters grouped according to broad types of paradox: rhetorical, theological, ontological, epistemological. Within this framework the author interprets individual writings or art forms as parts of a rich tradition.

Originally published in 1966.

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