Mammon's Music: Literature and Economics in the Age of MiltonYale University Press, 2008 M10 1 - 336 pages The commercial revolution of the seventeenth century deeply changed English culture. In this ambitious book, Blair Hoxby explores what that economic transformation meant to the century’s greatest poet, John Milton, and to the broader literary tradition in which he worked. Hoxby places Milton’s work—as well as the writings of contemporary reformers like the Levellers, poets like John Dryden, and political economists like Sir William Petty—within the framework of England’s economic history between 1601 and 1724. Literary history swerved in this period, Hoxby demonstrates, as a burgeoning economic discourse pressed authors to reimagine ideas about self, community, and empire. Hoxby shows that, contrary to commonly held views, Milton was a sophisticated economic thinker. Close readings of Milton’s prose and verse reveal the importance of economic ideas in a wide range of his most famous writings, from Areopagitica to Samson Agonistes to Paradise Lost. |
From inside the book
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Page 8
... ideas or the preservation of choice in the polity . In focusing on texts that represent or that consciously engage economic subjects and forms of analysis , I aim to honor literature's mimetic and per- suasive ambitions . The ...
... ideas or the preservation of choice in the polity . In focusing on texts that represent or that consciously engage economic subjects and forms of analysis , I aim to honor literature's mimetic and per- suasive ambitions . The ...
Page 10
... ideas were innocent of political or religious implications . By remaining alert to the circumstances in which authors wrote , I endeavor not only to recapture some of the complexity and contingency of economic life as it was experienced ...
... ideas were innocent of political or religious implications . By remaining alert to the circumstances in which authors wrote , I endeavor not only to recapture some of the complexity and contingency of economic life as it was experienced ...
Page 11
... ideas and the consequent production of truth . For some reformers like those in the Hartlib circle , the contiguity between information and commodities suggested projects that endeavored to increase economic enfranchisement by ...
... ideas and the consequent production of truth . For some reformers like those in the Hartlib circle , the contiguity between information and commodities suggested projects that endeavored to increase economic enfranchisement by ...
Page 13
... ideas , and assumptions recur in his work with a regularity that may pass for coherence . It has been plausibly suggested that these habits of thought arise from two intellectual traditions . The first is an ancient ideal of free- dom ...
... ideas , and assumptions recur in his work with a regularity that may pass for coherence . It has been plausibly suggested that these habits of thought arise from two intellectual traditions . The first is an ancient ideal of free- dom ...
Page 26
... ideas in an open market . In short , he advanced a new ideal of the way the public sphere should operate.3 In this chapter , we shall also see that if free speech pamphlets like Are- opagitica drew on the arguments of free trade ...
... ideas in an open market . In short , he advanced a new ideal of the way the public sphere should operate.3 In this chapter , we shall also see that if free speech pamphlets like Are- opagitica drew on the arguments of free trade ...
Contents
1 | |
15 | |
57 | |
Part Three Force Commerce and Empire | 125 |
Part Four The Meaning of Work | 201 |
Conclusion | 233 |
Abbreviations | 253 |
Notes | 255 |
Index | 311 |
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Amboyna Amsterdam Annus Mirabilis arch Areopagitica argued arguments Benjamin Worsley Book Cambridge University Press century chap chapter Charles Davenant Charles II Charles II's City claim commercial common Commonwealth Comus Comus's contemporary Court Crown Davenant Davenant's discourse Dryden Dutch early Stuarts East India Company economic empire England English Englishmen entrepôt epic force and commerce free trade George Wither Gerbier ideal Indies industry interest James John king labor liberty lines London Lord Masque merchants Milton monarchy monopolists monopoly nation natural naval nomic Oxford pamphlet panegyrics Paradise Lost Parliament Philistines poem poem's poets policies political Princeton Puritan Readie and Easie reformers religious republicans Restoration Revolution royal entry Royalist Rump Rump's Samson Agonistes Satan Second Anglo-Dutch Second Anglo-Dutch War ships Sir William slavery slaves subjects suggest texts thir Third Anglo-Dutch War Thomas tion Towerson tracts tradition truth United Provinces verse vision vols Waller wealth