Literature and Utopian Politics in Seventeenth-Century England - Softcover

Appelbaum, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521009154 ISBN 13: 9780521009157

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2010

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author:

Robert Appelbaum is a Post-doctoral Fellow in English at the University of San Diego. His articles have appeared in a number of journals, including Shakespeare Quarterly, Modern Philology, Textual Practice, Prose Studies, and Utopian Studies.

Review:

"...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

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0521009154
• ISBN 13: 9780521009157
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 270