William
J. Kennedy, Professor of Comparative Literature, teaches the history
of European literature and literary criticism from antiquity to
the early modern period. His interests focus on Italian, French,
English, and German texts from Dante to Milton. His Rhetorical Norms
in Renaissance Literature (Yale University Press, 1978) studies
interactions of genre, style, and mode in lyric, epic, and prose
narrative. His Jacopo Sannazaro and the Uses of Pastoral (University
Press of New England, 1983), recipient of the MLA’s Marraro
Prize, traces the rise of modern pastoral from ancient models. His
Authorizing Petrarch (Cornell University Press, 1994) explores the
canonizing imitations of that poet's work throughout Europe. His
most recent book is The Site of Petrarchism: Early Modern National
Sentiment in Italy, France, and England (Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2003). He has co-edited a rhetoric textbook, Writing in the
Disciplines (Prentice-Hall, fifth ed. 2003), and has contributed
articles on the history of rhetoric and literary theory to journals
and critical collections. He has received fellowships from the Fulbright,
Guggenheim, and Rockefeller Foundations. His current book-length
project focuses on figurations of economic exchange and transaction
in early modern European poetry.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Books:
Rhetorical Norms in Renaissance Literature, Yale University Press,
1978.
Jacopo Sannazaro and the Uses of Pastoral, University Press of New
England, 1983;
Howard R. Marraro MLA Prize 1982-84
Authorizing Petrarch, Cornell University Press, 1994.
The Site of Petrarchism: National Sentiment in Early Modern Italy,
France, and England,
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003
Edited Volumes:
Co-editor, Writing in the Disciplines, Prentice-Hall, 1986.
Cosmopolitan Crossings, guest-edited for Annals of Scholarship:
Art Practices and the
Human Sciences in a Global Culture, vol. 14, no. 2 (March, 2002).
Transactions and Exchanges in the European Renaissance, guest-edited
for Annals of
Scholarship: Art Practices and the Human Sciences in a Global Culture,
vol. 16.
Recent Articles:
“The Fool in Rabelais” in Fool and Jesters in Literature,
ed. Victoria Janik (Greenwood Press,
1997), pp. 370-76.
“Les autorités pétrarquistes et l'autorisation
de Pétrarque" in Dynamique d'une expansion culturelle, ed. Pierre Blanc (Paris: Champion, 2001), pp. 53-62.
"Is That a Man in Her Dress? Cuckoldry and Transvestism in
Renaissance Texts," in Opening the Borders, ed. Peter Herman (Newark: Univ. of Delaware Press,
1999), pp. 27-53.
"Les totems pour la défense et quelques illustrations
du tabou" in Sans Aultre guide: Etudes
sur la Renaissance, ed. Raymond La Charité and Philippe Desan
(Paris: Klinksieck,
1999), pp. 27-38.
“Les langues des hommes sont pleine de tromperies: Shakespeare,
French Poetry, and Alien
Tongues,” in a volume on Renaissance Studies edited by Zachary
Lesser and Benedict
Robinson, in progress
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Reniassance and Early Modern Literature and Culture in Italy, France,
and England
Poetry and Poetics in Italy, France, and England
Literature and History
RECENT COURSES
Romance Studies 348: Culture of the Later Renaissance
Comparative Literature 352: Shakespeare and Europe
Comparative Literature 356: Renaissance Literature
Romance Studies 450/650: Renaissance Poetry
Romance Studies 452/652: Renaissance Humanism
Romance Studies 456/656: Renaissance Narrative
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