As the notion of government by consent took hold in early modern England, many authors used childhood and maturity to address contentious questions of political representation - about who has a voice and who can speak on his or her own behalf. For John Milton, Ben Jonson, William Prynne, Thomas Hobbes and others, the period between infancy and adulthood became a site of intense scrutiny, especially as they examined the role of a literary education in turning children into political actors. Drawing on new archival evidence, Blaine Greteman argues that coming of age in the seventeenth century was a uniquely political act. His study makes a compelling case for understanding childhood as a decisive factor in debates over consent, autonomy and political voice, and will offer graduate students and scholars a new perspective on the emergence of apolitical children's literature in the eighteenth century.
• Traces the emergence of an apolitical children's literature that is unique to the eighteenth century • Draws on many archival sources that will be new to specialists and non-specialists alike
Contents
Acknowledgments; Abbreviations; Introduction: childish things; Part I. The Growth of Consent and Disciplining of Childhood in Early Modern England: 1. Coming of age on stage: Jonson's epicoene and the politics of childhood in early Stuart England; 2. Children, literature, and the problem of consent; 3. Contract's children: Thomas Hobbes and the culture of subjection; Part II. Milton and the Children of Liberty: 4. 'Perplex't paths': youth and authority in Milton's early work; 5. 'Children of reviving libertie': the radical politics of Milton's pedagogy; 6. 'Youthful beauty': infancy and adulthood among the angels of Paradise Lost; 7. Children of paradise; Epilogue: 'children gathering pebbles on the shore'.
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