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. |
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... Presented at Ludlow Castle ( 1637 ) , Paradise Lost ( 1667 ) , and Paradise Regaind . A Poem in IV Books . To Which is Added Samson Agonistes ( 1671 ) . These are reproduced in John Milton's Complete Poetical Works in Photographic ...
... Presented at Ludlow Castle ( 1637 ) , Paradise Lost ( 1667 ) , and Paradise Regaind . A Poem in IV Books . To Which is Added Samson Agonistes ( 1671 ) . These are reproduced in John Milton's Complete Poetical Works in Photographic ...
Page 7
... words and money is as old as Zeno , as Marc Shell has observed , and it remained . current in seventeenth - century England.28 That is why Michel Drayton claimed in a poem that the Goldsmiths presented to James INTRODUCTION 7.
... words and money is as old as Zeno , as Marc Shell has observed , and it remained . current in seventeenth - century England.28 That is why Michel Drayton claimed in a poem that the Goldsmiths presented to James INTRODUCTION 7.
Page 8
... presented to James I that Apollo was rightly the god of both poetry and minting.29 My interpretive meth- ods are compatible with semiological readings when they dwell on poetic moments like this , but I prefer to focus on economic ...
... presented to James I that Apollo was rightly the god of both poetry and minting.29 My interpretive meth- ods are compatible with semiological readings when they dwell on poetic moments like this , but I prefer to focus on economic ...
Page 11
... Presented at Ludlow Castle ( 1634 ) . It is all the more re- markable , then , to see how nearly Milton's views approach Comus's in the 1640s . That change is the subject of Part One , " Virtue , Commerce , Truth . " I argue that ...
... Presented at Ludlow Castle ( 1634 ) . It is all the more re- markable , then , to see how nearly Milton's views approach Comus's in the 1640s . That change is the subject of Part One , " Virtue , Commerce , Truth . " I argue that ...
Page 17
... Presented at Ludlow Castle ( 1634 ) . Having written one aristocratic entertainment for the dowager countess of Derby , a patron of reformist Protestant writers and the mother - in - law of John Egerton , earl of Bridgewater , Milton ...
... Presented at Ludlow Castle ( 1634 ) . Having written one aristocratic entertainment for the dowager countess of Derby , a patron of reformist Protestant writers and the mother - in - law of John Egerton , earl of Bridgewater , Milton ...
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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Common terms and phrases
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