The Gift of Immortality: Myths of Power and Humanist Poetics

"The Gift Of Immortality" considers the boast of literary power to glorify or immortalize, a topos of enormous popularity. Focusing on representative figures of Renaissance humanism and the roots of the topos in antiquity, author Stephen Murphy elaborates a complex myth of poetic power. This myth, includes the elements of nostalgia for a primordial epoch of magical effectiveness and social centrality, the ideal of patronage as gift exchange, the absorption of these extra-literary circumstances into literary convention. The world of Renaissance humanism figures a culmination in the eloquent poetic word. There the topos of poetic immortalization plays variations on themes introduced in ancient literature. In Homer, Pindar, Cicero, Horace, and Ovid, we find such persistent, yet uneasy motifs as the special status of Homer as the ideal "historical" poet, the poet's gesture of bestowal, the scene of Alexander at Achilles' grave, the work as enduring monument, and the longing for inclusion in the res publica. As "The Gift Of Immortality" explores the relationships of power myths and humanist poetry, the reader is taken for a literary journey that is a tour-de-force of critical discourse adhering to the highest standards of both the scholar and the poet. "The Gift Of Immortality" is a fascinating 243 page discourse further enhanced by extensive notation and an exhaustive index.Stephen Murphy is the author of 'The Gift of Immortality: Myths of Power and Humanist Poetics' with ISBN 9780838636855 and ISBN 0838636853.