Literature and Utopian Politics in Seventeenth-Century England
Title | Literature and Utopian Politics in Seventeenth-Century England PDF eBook |
Author | Robert Appelbaum |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Pages | 270 |
Release | 2002-04-04 |
Genre | Literary Criticism |
ISBN | 1139432869 |
Hundreds of writers in the English-speaking world of the seventeenth-century imagined alternative ideal societies. Sometimes they did so by exploring fanciful territories, such as the world in the moon or the nations of the Antipodes; but sometimes they composed serious disquisitions about the here and now, proposing how England or its nascent colonies could be conceived of as an 'Oceana,' or a New Jerusalem. This book provides a comprehensive view of the operations of the utopian imagination in literature from 1603 to the 1660s. Appealing to social theorists, literary critics, and political and cultural historians, this volume revises prevailing notions of the languages of hope and social dreaming in the making of British modernity during a century of political and intellectual upheaval.
A Rational Millennium
Title | A Rational Millennium PDF eBook |
Author | James Holstun |
Publisher | Oxford University Press, USA |
Pages | 390 |
Release | 1987 |
Genre | Business & Economics |
ISBN |
Taking a new approach to the history of utopia, this volume combines the political study of literary form with the literary study of political rhetoric. After arguing that early modern utopists, both literary and non-literary, attempt to reshape displaced populations, Holstun concentrates on two utopian projects of the mid-17th century: the political platforms and Algonquin "praying towns" of John Eliot in Massachusetts and the republican political writing of James Harrington in Protectorate England. Moving between these projects and modern analyses of rationalization, he shows that Puritan utopia shares the modern Western longing for universal social discipline and that it envisions this discipline as the rational means to the Millennium.
Utopia and the Ideal Society
Title | Utopia and the Ideal Society PDF eBook |
Author | J. C. Davis |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Pages | 444 |
Release | 1983-07-28 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 9780521275514 |
This text provides a major study for all those working in the fields of 16th- and 17th-century political and social thought.
Imagination and Politics in Seventeenth-Century England
Title | Imagination and Politics in Seventeenth-Century England PDF eBook |
Author | Todd Butler |
Publisher | Routledge |
Pages | 394 |
Release | 2017-03-02 |
Genre | Literary Criticism |
ISBN | 1351928724 |
Todd Butler here proposes a new epistemology of early modern politics, one that sees-as did writers of the period-human thought as a precursor to political action. By focusing not on reason or the will but on the imagination, Butler uncovers a political culture in seventeenth-century England that is far more shifting and multi-polar than has been previously recognized. Pursuing the connection between individual thought and corporate political action, he also charts the existence of a discourse that grounds modern scholarly interests in the representational nature of early modern politics - its images, rituals and entertainment-within a language early moderns themselves used. Through analysis of a wide variety of seventeenth-century texts, including the writings of Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes, Caroline Court masques, and the poetry and prose of John Milton, he reveals a society deeply concerned with the fundamentally imaginative nature of politics. It is a strength of the study that Butler looks at unusual or slighted texts by these authors alongside their more canonical texts. The study also ranges widely across disciplines, engaging literature alongside both natural and political philosophy. By emphasizing the human mind rather than human institutions as the primary site of the period's political struggles, this study reframes critical understandings of seventeenth-century English politics and the texts that helped define them.
The Decline of Utopian Literature in the Seventeenth Century
Title | The Decline of Utopian Literature in the Seventeenth Century PDF eBook |
Author | Lewis Conrad Smith |
Publisher | |
Pages | 454 |
Release | 1950 |
Genre | Literature, Modern |
ISBN |
The Look of Power
Title | The Look of Power PDF eBook |
Author | Robert Appelbaum |
Publisher | |
Pages | 632 |
Release | 1997 |
Genre | |
ISBN |
A Nation of Change and Novelty
Title | A Nation of Change and Novelty PDF eBook |
Author | Christopher Hill |
Publisher | Taylor & Francis |
Pages | 275 |
Release | 2023-04-17 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN | 1000870278 |
A Nation of Change and Novelty (1990) ranges broadly over the political and literary terrain of the seventeenth century, examining the importance of the English Revolution as a decisive event in English and European history. It emphasises the historical significance of the English Revolution, exploring not only its causes but also its long term consequences, basing both in a broad social context and viewing it as a necessary condition of England’s having nurtured the first Industrial Revolution.