Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship: Language, Law and History in the French Renaissance

Abstract

overloaded for ready comprehension, and the progression of thought hard to follow.The vocabulary tends towards jargon and pomposity: 'With the abolishment of these linear connections of grammar, emotions are left only with their vertical, Faustian projections' (p. 133).The fact that the author has chosen to give not footnotes but references at the back in an effort to evoke 'the liveliness of several voices contribut- ing to the argument' (x), does not help, and this reader could have benefited from more precise annotation.The range of reference is wide, and Mazzaro draws not only upon Renaissance music, philosophy and (briefly) art to substantiate his theories, but also upon less predictable sources such as Emile Durkheim, Roland Barthes, Homer and Joyce.For the open-minded reader the book may be very stimulating.