The Logical Renaissance

Abstract

The Logical Renaissance is the first substantial account of early modern English literature’s relationship with logic. Logic was at the centre of early modern education: during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, university students spent at least two years of their degree studying it, and many grammar school students encountered it in the final phase of their training. The book aims to help readers understand the central terms and concepts of early modern logic, and to show how they can be found in some of the most important works of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literature. The Logical Renaissance argues that logic played a crucial role in the processes of literary composition and reading: it aided writers in the discovery of material and taught them how to arrange it, while readers drew on the rules of logic to develop a structured understanding of texts. The book covers a broad range of early modern writing (including epic and lyric poetry, drama, and religious prose) by Andrewes, Donne, Milton, Shakespeare, Sidney, and Spenser. It suggests that the influence of rhetoric on early modern writing has been overstated, and that greater attention to logic will give us a fuller and richer understanding of literary production in the period.