Synopses & Reviews
Hundreds of writers in the seventeenth century imagined alternative ideal societies, they did this through imagined journeys to far-off territories - a world turned upside down or a world in the moon, and through serious disquisitions about the here and now, proposing how England itself could be made into a parliamentary 'Oceana' or a 'New Jerusalem'. Robert Appelbaum surveys literature from 1603 to the 1660s and shows how its ideal politics was engaged in the reality of political and social struggle. He also shows how paradoxical and self-defeating the exercise could be. In an era of change and 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.
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
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.
Synopsis
Appelbaum surveys the utopian imagination in literature from 1603 to the 1660s.
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.
Table of Contents
'Introduction; 1. The look of power; 2. 1620 38: Utopian experimentalism; 3. Reformation and desolation: the new horizons of the 1640s; 4. 1649 1653: out of the âtrue nothingâ; 1654 1670: from constitutionalism to aestheticization.\n
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