Book Talk: Jenny C. Mann's The Trials of Orpheus

Please join the Early Modern Working Group to celebrate and discuss the publication of Jenny Mann's second book, The Trials of Orpheus: Poetry, Science, and the Early Modern Sublime (Princeton UP, 2021)! Come hear Jenny Mann talk about the power of eloquence and its effects on Renaissance art and science—and stay for socialization afterward.

We'll also discuss "The Story of Orpheus and Eurydice" and "The Death of Orpheus" from Books X and XI of Ovid's Metamorphosis. As for translation, it's dealer's choice.

Event Attendance Requirements:

• Only NYU students, faculty and staff can RSVP
• All attendees must RSVP
• All individuals must show the Daily Screener green pass screen prior to entry to the building
• Eating and drinking are not permitted at indoor events.
• Everyone must wear a mask/face covering that covers both the mouth and nose at all times.

From the publisher—

In ancient Greek mythology, the lyrical songs of Orpheus charmed the gods, and compelled animals, rocks, and trees to obey his commands. This mythic power inspired Renaissance philosophers and poets as they attempted to discover the hidden powers of verbal eloquence. They wanted to know: How do words produce action? In The Trials of Orpheus, Jenny Mann examines the key role the Orpheus story played in helping early modern writers and thinkers understand the mechanisms of rhetorical force. Mann demonstrates that forms and figures of ancient poetry indellibly shaped the principles of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century knowledge.

Mann explores how Ovid's version of the Orpheus myth gave English poets and natural philosophers the lexicon with which to explain language's ability to move individuals without physical contact. These writers and thinkers came to see eloquence as an aesthetic force capable of binding, drawing, softening, and scattering audiences. Bringing together a range of examples from drama, poetry, and philosophy by Bacon, Marlowe, Montaigne, Shakespeare, and others, Mann demonstrates that the fascination with Orpheus produced some of the most canonical literature of the age.

Delving into the impact of ancient Greek thought and poetry in the early modern era, The Trials of Orpheus sheds light on how the powers of rhetoric became a focus of English thought and literature.

Jenny C. Mann is Associate Professor of English at New York University. She is the author of Outlaw Rhetoric: Figuring Vernacular Eloquence in Shakespeare's England (Cornell University Press, 2012).