From Humanism to Hobbes
Studies in Rhetoric and Politics

Offers new insights into the works of Machiavelli, Shakespeare and especially Hobbes by focusing on their use of rhetoric.

Quentin Skinner (Author)

9781107569362, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 25 January 2018

444 pages, 45 b/w illus.
22.8 x 15.4 x 2 cm, 0.72 kg

'Skinner provides a masterful survey of these laws and institutions, including the canny and pragmatic use of religious observance to foster virtù among citizens.' Victoria Kahn, Springer journals

The aim of this collection is to illustrate the pervasive influence of humanist rhetoric on early-modern literature and philosophy. The first half of the book focuses on the classical rules of judicial rhetoric. One chapter considers the place of these rules in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, while two others concentrate on the technique of rhetorical redescription, pointing to its use in Machiavelli's The Prince as well as in several of Shakespeare's plays, notably Coriolanus. The second half of the book examines the humanist background to the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. A major new essay discusses his typically humanist preoccupation with the visual presentation of his political ideas, while other chapters explore the rhetorical sources of his theory of persons and personation, thereby offering new insights into his views about citizenship, political representation, rights and obligations and the concept of the state.

List of illustrations
Acknowledgments
List of abbreviations and conventions
1. Introduction
2. Classical rhetoric and the personation of the state
3. Machiavelli on misunderstanding princely virtù
4. Judicial rhetoric in The Merchant of Venice
5. Rhetorical redescription and its uses in Shakespeare
6. The generation of John Milton at Cambridge
7. Rethinking liberty in the English revolution
8. Hobbes on civil conversation
9. Hobbes on political representation
10. Hobbes and the humanist frontispiece
11. Hobbes on hereditary right
12. Hobbes and the concept of the state
Bibliographies
Manuscript sources
Primary printed sources
Secondary sources
Index.

Subject Areas: Political science & theory [JPA], Philosophy [HP], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], Literary theory [DSA]