• Renaissance encyclopaedism - encyclopaedic ideals in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, genre; encyclopaedias and miscellanies; from the encyclopaedia to the miscellany - philosophical forms, philosophical subjects, readership; structuring knowledge - encyclopaedic structures, encyclopaedic struesure under strain, miscellanies and fragmenation; representations of nature - "meslange", "diversite", and "difference" in nature, representing "meslange", "diversite" and "difference"; fiction and philosophy - philosophical fictions, encyclopaedic revelations inside palaces and cabinets, quests inside and outside palaces and cabinets; the status of knowledge - ethics, epistemology, the limits of knowledge.

Kenny's study is thorough, precise, lucid and elegant. ... combines a literary with a philosophical approach to 'erolade's texts ... Kenny's study, which makes unobtrusive use of literary theory, from Bakhtin to Derrida, is very much of the 1990s in its concern with subversion and contradiction ... As Kenny demonstrates ... these were the concerns of the 1590s as well. ... persuasive and perceptive study'

• Renaissance encyclopaedism - encyclopaedic ideals in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, genre; encyclopaedias and miscellanies; from the encyclopaedia to the miscellany - philosophical forms, philosophical subjects, readership; structuring knowledge - encyclopaedic structures, encyclopaedic struesure under strain, miscellanies and fragmenation; representations of nature - "meslange", "diversite", and "difference" in nature, representing "meslange", "diversite" and "difference"; fiction and philosophy - philosophical fictions, encyclopaedic revelations inside palaces and cabinets, quests inside and outside palaces and cabinets; the status of knowledge - ethics, epistemology, the limits of knowledge.

Kenny's study is thorough, precise, lucid and elegant. ... combines a literary with a philosophical approach to 'erolade's texts ... Kenny's study, which makes unobtrusive use of literary theory, from Bakhtin to Derrida, is very much of the 1990s in its concern with subversion and contradiction ... As Kenny demonstrates ... these were the concerns of the 1590s as well. ... persuasive and perceptive study'

• Renaissance encyclopaedism - encyclopaedic ideals in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, genre; encyclopaedias and miscellanies; from the encyclopaedia to the miscellany - philosophical forms, philosophical subjects, readership; structuring knowledge - encyclopaedic structures, encyclopaedic struesure under strain, miscellanies and fragmenation; representations of nature - "meslange", "diversite", and "difference" in nature, representing "meslange", "diversite" and "difference"; fiction and philosophy - philosophical fictions, encyclopaedic revelations inside palaces and cabinets, quests inside and outside palaces and cabinets; the status of knowledge - ethics, epistemology, the limits of knowledge.

Kenny's study is thorough, precise, lucid and elegant. ... combines a literary with a philosophical approach to 'erolade's texts ... Kenny's study, which makes unobtrusive use of literary theory, from Bakhtin to Derrida, is very much of the 1990s in its concern with subversion and contradiction ... As Kenny demonstrates ... these were the concerns of the 1590s as well. ... persuasive and perceptive study'