Literature and Utopian Politics in Seventeenth-Century England
Literature and Utopian Politics in Seventeenth-Century England
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Appelbaum surveys literature from 1603 to the 1660s and shows how its ideal politics were engaged in the reality of political and social struggle. He also shows how self-defeating the exercise could be. In an era of political and religious conflict, writers asserted themselves as the authors of social and political ideals. But they also constructed systems in which the assertion of utopian mastery would have no place, and an ideal politics could no longer be imagined. This study will interest political and cultural historians as well as literary critics.
- A vivid and compelling discussion of the utopian imagination in seventeenth-century England
- Offers an important reassessment of the role of the utopian imagination in early modern history
- Provides key thoughts on the relation between literature and politics in early modern England
Reviews & endorsements
"...a well-documented and engaging discourse, Appelbaum provides a fresh reading of familiar authors..." Renaissance and Reformation
"...full of good things, rich in insight and interest." Utopian Studies
"With a surprising juxtaposition of texts and a compellingly coherent argument throughout, Appelbaum gives the seventeenth cetnru ya new shape. He collects together much material that has not been seen in close relation before, and he tellingly glues it together with his original defintion of utopian politics. This is an elegant book." Studies in English Literature
"Appelbaum has produced a gracefully written, well-conceived, and highly perceptive entry into seventeenth-century scholarship that bodes extremely well for future efforts in kind." Renaissance Quarterly
"Applebaum's rigorous analyses yield many interesting and trenchant insights... For graduate and research collections." Choice
Product details
August 2010Paperback
9780521009157
270 pages
228 × 153 × 17 mm
0.44kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1. The look of power
- 2. Utopian experimentalism, 1620–38
- 3. 'Reformation' and 'desolation': the new horizons of the 1640s
- 4. Out of the 'true nothing', 1649–53
- 5. From constitutionalism to aestheticization, 1654–70
- Note
- Index.
