Coming home again : Johannes Hofer, Edmund Spenser, and premodern nostalgia
Abstract
The word ‘nostalgia’ was coined by the Swiss medical student Johannes Hofer in his 1688 Dissertatio Medica de Nostalgia, oder Heimwehe. Hofer’s treatise and Edmund Spenser’s 1595 poem Colin Clovts Come home againe exemplify a premodern nostalgia. Hofer moves between moments of familiarity and alienation, whilst Spenser’s poem offers a richly imaginative response to the Elizabethan attempt to ‘plant’ new homes in Ireland. In each case, premodern nostalgia situates the longing for home within patterns of doubling and repetition that unsettle ideas of origin and belonging even as they propagate them.
Citation
Davis , A L 2017 , ' Coming home again : Johannes Hofer, Edmund Spenser, and premodern nostalgia ' , Parergon , vol. 33 , no. 2 , pp. 17-38 . https://doi.org/10.1353/pgn.2016.0073
Publication
Parergon
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1832-8334Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2016 Alex Davis. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1353/pgn.2016.0073
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