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
Results 1-5 of 69
Page 7
... seem to dictate . While such readings need no longer assume that eco- nomic forces constitute a base that determines society's superstructure of politics , law , and religion , they still analyze economic events in Marxist terms that ...
... seem to dictate . While such readings need no longer assume that eco- nomic forces constitute a base that determines society's superstructure of politics , law , and religion , they still analyze economic events in Marxist terms that ...
Page 9
... seems to me entirely appropriate for a work that aspires to the name of historicist literary criticism , not historiography . In practice , if not in theory , New Historicists tend to assume a pro- visional division between text and ...
... seems to me entirely appropriate for a work that aspires to the name of historicist literary criticism , not historiography . In practice , if not in theory , New Historicists tend to assume a pro- visional division between text and ...
Page 10
... seem either to invoke as their own context or to suppress with a bad conscience.35 I believe this is the best way to honor literature's ambition and capacity to serve as an active mediator of culture . While the authors who are the ...
... seem either to invoke as their own context or to suppress with a bad conscience.35 I believe this is the best way to honor literature's ambition and capacity to serve as an active mediator of culture . While the authors who are the ...
Page 13
... seems peculiarly conscious both of the difficulty of imagining any sys- tem of economic relations that would be safe from such dangers and of the social and personal losses that would inevitably result from forgoing all commerce among ...
... seems peculiarly conscious both of the difficulty of imagining any sys- tem of economic relations that would be safe from such dangers and of the social and personal losses that would inevitably result from forgoing all commerce among ...
Page 17
... seems to have been familiar with the court masques of the Jacobean and Caroline court , which he could have read in printed form . He may have received more reports from his musical collaborator , Henry Lawes , and his performers , the ...
... seems to have been familiar with the court masques of the Jacobean and Caroline court , which he could have read in printed form . He may have received more reports from his musical collaborator , Henry Lawes , and his performers , the ...
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 |
Other editions - View all
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