Triumphal Forms
Structural Patterns in Elizabethan Poetry

A demonstration of the persistence of numerology, a characteristic of literature in the Middle Ages, in Elizabethan poetry.

Alastair Fowler (Author)

9780521128964, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 4 February 2010

264 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.39 kg

A study of numerology in Elizabethan poetry, with some background studies which base the subject in classical learning, the works of Dante and Petrarch, and the esoteric traditions of the humanists. The central assumption of numerological criticism is that there exist works written in this tradition which show a correspondence between structure and meaning on a numerical plane; that is, one in which the number of the constituent parts (lines, stanzas, sonnets in a sequence) expresses a major aspect of the meaning. For instance parts of the whole can be arranged to represent months of the year and so on. Such structures of time and the triumphal form, in which the most important 'sovereign' element is placed at the centre, are the two main numerological patterns discussed by Dr Fowler. Critics have tended to regard numerology as an isolated phenomenon, rare after the Middle Ages but Dr Fowler demonstrates its persistence in the works of Spenser, Sidney, Chapman, Shakespeare, Donne, Jonson, Dryden and others.

Preface
1. Evidence
2. Triumphs
3. Fictional triumphs
4. Numerology of the centre
5. Styles of symmetry
6. The unity of time
7. Temporal numbers
8. Epithalamia
9. Sonnet sequences
Epilogue: Numerology and the literary artefact
Appendices
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]