Villon's Last Will

Villon's Last Will by Tony Hunt

Villon studies have traditionally emphasized the documentary and didactic value of the Testament, concentrating on problems of historical referentiality. It is assumed that the work has a significant autobiographical element and that it has much to tell us about life in fifteenth-century Paris. The Testament has thus been avidly exploited by historians of the period and its interest as a document is well-established. Tony Hunt's present study concentrates exclusively on the textual strategies of the Testament, in particular on rhetorical techniques involving dialogue and irony. Villon's Last Will views the Testament as ironic from start to finish, and the main objects of the irony are identified as language and authority. The dissolution of meaning, authority, and even authorial identity are seen to be the principal results of the poet's rhetoric. Tony Hunt's close reading of the text has produced a lively and well-informed commentary, full of fresh insights.

Tony Hunt's study is a very big book pakced into a riotously small spaceThe erudition, it and ribald fun of Villon's text is dexterously unpacked through close reading and scholarly commment on the generic and social contexts. Villon's irony and Sterne-like self-referentiality are brought to the fore for the first time to make this an important new contribution to the study of Villon, with a delightfully light, but no less incisive, critical touch. * Forum for Modern Language Studies 35:4 99 *
there are ... many excellent things here to be unearthed ... Hunt provides a tool-kit for examining at close range the dazzling feats of a master technician. * Times Literary Supplement *
This is like a good study of Rembrandt's brushwork; and though paint is all we have to look at, there is more to Rembrandt than brushwork. * Times Literary Supplement *

Barber, Richard: - Richard Barber has published widely on medieval history. The Knight and Chivalry won the 1971 Somerset Maugham Award. His other major interest is historical biography with books on Henry Plantagenet and the Black Prince.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780198159148
ISBN 10	0198159145
Title	Villon's Last Will
Author	Tony Hunt
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Year published	1996-08-01
Number of pages	176
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable