Precious nonsense

Description:

What is it about our experience of great literature that makes us treasure these works so highly? Stephen Booth suggests that a great source, perhaps the great source, of the special appeal of our most valued works is that they are, in one way or another, utterly nonsensical. Reading the rhetorical tangles, the illogical leaps, and the most absurd imagery of three disparate texts - the Gettysburg Address, Ben Jonson's Epitaphs on his children, and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night - Booth demonstrates how poetics triumph over logic in the "mind games" that enrich the experience of reading.

subjects: English Nonsense literature,  English literature,  History and criticism,  Nonsense literature, English,  Shakespeare, william, 1564-1616, twelfth night,  Lincoln, abraham, 1809-1865, gettysburg address,  Jonson, ben, 1573-1637,  English literature, history and criticism, early modern, 1500-1700

People: Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865),  Ben Jonson (1573?-1637),  William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Times: Early modern, 1500-1700