Writing the English Republic
Poetry, Rhetoric and Politics, 1627–1660

'[A] marvellously original, densely researched study of the English republican imagination.' Tom Paulin, The Independent

David Norbrook (Author)

9780521785693, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 28 January 2000

524 pages, 16 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 3 cm, 0.76 kg

'The case for the republican conscience resounds most eloquently in the impressive coda to this book … By paying proper attention to poets and historians, Norbrook is able to show that republicanism's roots went deep into the political culture of the 1640s, and even earlier … But the pay-off for historians stems above all from Norbrook's decision to produce a theme-driven argument instead of a general survey. This has led him to dig deep into the textual remains of the Revolution, rather than content himself with the familiar surface structures.' London Review of Books

'[Norbrook's] marvellously original, densely researched study of the English republican imagination is an attempt to retrieve forgotten figures like the regicide Henry Marten, as well as to extend our understanding of the works of Milton and Marvell.' Tom Paulin, The Independent '[A] fine and important book … I suspect that Writing the English Republic will have as large and lasting an impact as any previous or readily foreseeable study of the relationship between literature and politics in seventeenth-century England. [Norbrook] writes in an attractively exploratory spirit which resists dogmatism and the sealing of argument.' Blair Worden,Times Literary Supplement 'The case for the republican conscience resounds most eloquently in the impressive coda to this book … but the pay-off for historians stems above all from Norbrook's decision to produce a theme-driven argument instead of a general survey. This has led him to dig deep into the textual remains of the Revolution, rather than content himself with the familiar surface structures.' London Review of Books

Introduction
1. Lucan and the poetry of civil war
2. The King's peace and the people's war, 1630–43
3. Rhetoric, Republicanism and the public sphere: Marten, Waller, and Milton, 1641–44
4. Uncivil peace: politics and literary culture 1645–49
5. Poetry and the Commonwealth, 1649–53
6. Double names: Marvell and the Commonwealth
7. King Oliver? Protectoral Augustanism and its critics, 1653–58
8. Republicanizing Cromwell
9. Culture and anarchy? The revival and eclipse of Republicanism, 1658–60
10. Paradise Lost and English Republicanism
Appendix.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC]