On Pedantry

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 2 introduces and eventually reframes the figure that has, since the beginning of the sixteenth century, been the butt of satire about scholarly stupidity: the pedant. Using texts by Montaigne, Charron, Donne, and others to locate the meaning of the pedant figure, and ending with a detailed analysis of Jonson’s 1616 folio Works, this chapter shows how the discourse and performance of ‘pedantry’ both in early modern culture and in the critical tradition works to elide the communal potential of obscurity in art. It attempts to restore that potential, arguing for the ethical power of difficult historical literature in our own classrooms and offering a needed reevaluation of Jonson’s familiar reputation as the overweening pedant of the Shakespearean stage.