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 51
Page 1
... tradition in which he worked . I focus on texts produced from 1634 to the end of the Anglo - Dutch Wars in 1674 , a period that co- incides not only with the maturity of this study's central figure , Milton , but with the appearance of ...
... tradition in which he worked . I focus on texts produced from 1634 to the end of the Anglo - Dutch Wars in 1674 , a period that co- incides not only with the maturity of this study's central figure , Milton , but with the appearance of ...
Page 2
... traditional cloth trade , but the Cockayne Project changed all that . Even when the projectors were per- mitted to ship white cloths , they proved incapable of doing so , and they faced an even harder time selling the cloths that they ...
... traditional cloth trade , but the Cockayne Project changed all that . Even when the projectors were per- mitted to ship white cloths , they proved incapable of doing so , and they faced an even harder time selling the cloths that they ...
Page 3
... traditional distinction between the common wealth and private commodity . For " what else makes a Common - wealth , " he asked in a question that would echo throughout the century , “ but the private- wealth , if I may so say , of the ...
... traditional distinction between the common wealth and private commodity . For " what else makes a Common - wealth , " he asked in a question that would echo throughout the century , “ but the private- wealth , if I may so say , of the ...
Page 5
... traditional categories of thought and established genres precisely because it was associated with a power- ful new way of seeing and describing the world , one whose ramifications stretched far beyond narrow questions of commerce . Yet ...
... traditional categories of thought and established genres precisely because it was associated with a power- ful new way of seeing and describing the world , one whose ramifications stretched far beyond narrow questions of commerce . Yet ...
Page 12
... tradition of topographic poetry that stretches from Sir John Denham's Coopers Hill ( 1642 ) to Alexander Pope's Windsor Forest ( 1713 ) . For Dryden , the complementary relationship between force and commerce suggested by the Anglo ...
... tradition of topographic poetry that stretches from Sir John Denham's Coopers Hill ( 1642 ) to Alexander Pope's Windsor Forest ( 1713 ) . For Dryden , the complementary relationship between force and commerce suggested by the Anglo ...
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