The Cambridge Companion to Thomas More

by George M. Logan

Overview

This Companion offers a comprehensive introduction to the life and work of a major figure of the modern world. Combining breadth of coverage with depth, the book opens with essays on More's family, early life and education, his literary humanism, virtuoso rhetoric, illustrious public career and ferocious opposition to emergent Protestantism, and his fall from power, incarceration, trial and execution. These chapters are followed by in-depth studies of five of More's major works – Utopia, The History of King Richard the Third, A Dialogue Concerning Heresies, A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation and De Tristitia Christi – and a final essay on the varied responses to the man and his writings in his own and subsequent centuries. The volume provides an accessible overview of this fascinating figure to students and other interested readers, whilst also presenting, and in many areas extending, the most important modern scholarship on him.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521888622
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/27/2011
Series:	Cambridge Companions to Religion
Pages:	330
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

George M. Logan is the James Cappon Professor of English (Emeritus) at Queen's University, Canada, and a Senior Fellow of Massey College in the University of Toronto. A leading More scholar, he is the author of an influential book on Utopia, principal editor of the Cambridge edition of that work and editor of More's History of King Richard the Third, as well as senior editor of the sixteenth-century section of the distinguished Norton Anthology of English Literature.

Table of Contents

Notes on contributors; Preface; List of abbreviations; Chronology; Part I. Life, Times and Work: 1. The making of a London citizen Caroline M. Barron; 2. Thomas More as humanist James McConica; 3. More's rhetoric Elizabeth McCutcheon; 4. More's public life Catherine Curtis; 5. More and the heretics Richard Rex; 6. The last years Peter Marshall; Part II. Five Major Works: 7. Reading Utopia Dominic Baker-Smith; 8. More on tyranny: The History of King Richard the Third George M. Logan; 9. A Dialogue concerning Heresies Eamon Duffy; 10. 'In stede of harme inestimable good': A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation Andrew W. Taylor; 11. The lessons of Gethsemane: De Tristitia Christi Katherine Gardiner Rodgers; Part III. Reception: 12. Afterlives Anne Lake Prescott; Foundational resources for the study of Thomas More; Index.

Editorial Reviews

The Cambridge Companion to Thomas More provides a valuable overview of Thomas More’s life and works, augmenting our understanding of both as well as challenging conventional approaches to his biography and literary criticism. As such, the value of the articles within this text extends beyond More scholarship, enriching a variety of approaches to Renaissance study and the early modern classroom.” —Gaywyn Moore, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching (SMART)

From the Publisher