Reviews for An empire nowhere

The average rating for An empire nowhere based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-04-21 00:00:00 Tadafumi Ishizawa The classic on the causes of the court life. Notes: Mobility: "treats Elizabethan courtesy literature as a repertoire of action invoked by, ad meant to order, the surge of social mobility that occurred at the boundaries between ruling and subject classes in late sixteenth-century England" (xi) Gloss on Wilson " any man would live like a lord rather than an underling if he could" (2). "Wilson makes possible a new conception of the hierarchical social order: not as a set of sealed ranks, nor even as an order based on merit (another new strategy with its own problems), but as a system dominated by those who can convince others that they ought to submit" (3). "Movement across the gap between ruling and subject classes was becoming increasingly possible and elite identity had begun to be a function of actions rather than of birth--to be achieved rather than ascribed" (5). Qtd Wallace MacCaffrey "in the intensely rank-conscious world of late Tudor England, there was an unceasing scramble to cross the dividing line which separated gentlemen (the 'common sort of nobility_ as Camden called them) from the mere yeoman or freeholder" (qtd 7). "lures, grasped or not, gave rise to much activity among the ever-growing group of ambitious have-nots" (9). qtd Stone "free-for-all competitive struggle uncontrolled by the existing elite, which produced a surplus of qualified men for available elite jobs" (qtd 17). Castilio, Petrach etc. constitute a sort of canon for "a courtly mover, or at least that they register the desire for such a life" (26). Qtd. Bacon of courtesy texts"they serve..also for action and business" (qtd 29) and, as Whigham says "all of these texts function as commodities" (29)... "As both analyses and weapons, these texts both depict and enact the exercise of power and privilege in a world cominated by the social rhetoric of courtesy" (30). "those who would rise aimed to make themselves indistinguishable from their future peers, if possible by persuading those peers themselves" (33). Under conditions "one hired out one's verbal skills for the purpose of attesting to the power of an employer and his interests" (54). Qtd. Ingenioso character in the Parnassus Plays written by Cambridge students tries to bribe the master of the house with writing, then tries to bribe the patron's servent with same skills "why man, I am able to make a pamplet of thy blew coate and the button in they capp, to rime thy bearde of they face, to make thee a reidculous blew sleeued creature, while though liuest. I have immortalitie in my pen, and bestowe it on whome I will. Well, help mee to the speache of my maister quicklie, and Ile make that obscure name of thyne, which is knowne amoungst non by hindes and milkmaides, ere longe to florishe in the press and the printers stall (lines 249-56) (qtd 56) --multiple dedications problem? "the the worlds of both nature and culture a varied field of characteristics is conceive, but its varitions are parceled out along a single axis. No notation exists for a rich but stupid man or a poor by talented woman; come simply have more virtue, some less" (68). "Such theorized conincidence of aristocratic rank and the virtues of letters required the restiction of educational opportunity. Although such a resitriction was never really accomplished, it might have been justified by the restrospective fantasy" (78). Elyot's weird position "He has the awkward status of educator to a despotic elite: on the one hand, he speaks from a position of intellectual superiority; on the other, he must play the servant" (119). Bacon qtd "These gentlemen are nowe called vpstartes, a terme lately inuented by such as pondered not ye groundes of honest meanes if rising or commyng to promocion" (sig C4r--v) qtd. 170). Googe qtd "The chiefest man, in all our townes, that beares the greatest swaye is Coridon no kynne to me, a Neteherd th[e] other daye. This Coridon came from teh Carte, In honour chiefe doth sytte, and gouernes vs: because he hath a Crabbed, Clownish wytte" (qtd 172) W. Argues identification between the two because of the name same and the Coridon narrator was shepherd himself. Anxieties of social climbing (172-5) Sprezzatura it is there for requisite (say they) that high wisdom, and excellent works, would be concealed from common sight" (qtd. Kepers's translation of The Courtiers Academie 19). "the 'natural' self is ...recognized...as a product, and soon, with the aid of courtesy books, becomes a commodity" (33). "the punctilio in this case is almost paranoid; it invades and contaminated even those private moments when (42) actions are supposedly most unperformed. the ideal courtier is never offstage" (43). Other "symbolic purposes come to dominate, or at least tint, substantive ones in all aspects of everyday life" (36). "From della Casa's angel, vice is reduced to a social indelicacy. By the same token, if virtue were not pleasant, it woul dbe contraindicated. Moral categories are dominated by stylistic ones" (45)

Review # 2 was written on 2015-09-19 00:00:00 Tammy Wilson This is a very helpful book for parents of toddlers ages 18-30 months. Each chapter follows a different child and their parents, and describes the challenges, changes, and growing pains of children. The author offers a plain analysis of why a young child behaves as they do and suggests appropriate responses to various scenarios without being "preachy". Although it seems somewhat dated in parts (published 1974), most of the help Dr. Brazelton offers is still relevant to today's families.