Introduction

The concept of the baroque has troubled art historians, literary critics and philosophers for nearly three centuries. The persistent confusion over the meaning of the baroque first emerged in debates over the word’s etymology during the eighteenth century. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Johann Winckelmann could not agree on the origins of the term then, and we have not fared better since. But by returning to the earliest sources of the word baroque and the Scholastic history of the syllogism Baroco, The English Baroque in Early Modern Literature not only demonstrates the consistency of the baroque as a concept, but also its relevance to early modern literature. This new approach to the baroque is especially relevant to scholars of early modern English literature who continue to elide the style from British literary history. In short, The English Baroque in Early Modern Literature is an attempt to redefine the baroque as a logic of excess and to re-establish the English baroque as a literary field of study.