Classical Humanism and Republicanism in English Political Thought, 1570-1640

Classical Humanism and Republicanism in English Political Thought, 1570-1640 PDF Author: Markku Peltonen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521617161
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Book Description
Markku Peltonen examines humanist and republican themes in English political thinking between the mid-sixteenth century and the Civil War. He challenges the dominant view that humanism fizzled out in the middle of the sixteenth century only to re-emerge during the 1650s in the writings of such classical republicans as James Harrington and John Milton. The English continued to use central notions of the humanist tradition such as the virtuous civic life and vera nobilitas to portray themselves as citizens, characterizing their life as one of participation rather than subjection. They often resorted to openly republican themes - notably that governors be elected rather than hereditary - and the classical idea of the mixed constitution was profoundly influential. Dr Peltonen casts an important new perspective on these humanist and republican themes, and locates their uses in specific historical circumstances.

Classical Humanism in English Political Thought from 1570 to 1640 with Special Reference to Classical Republicanism

Classical Humanism in English Political Thought from 1570 to 1640 with Special Reference to Classical Republicanism PDF Author: Markku Peltonen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Humanism
Languages : en
Pages : 298

Book Description


The Political Thought of the English Free State, 1649–1653

The Political Thought of the English Free State, 1649–1653 PDF Author: Markku Peltonen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009212079
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 275

Book Description
English republicanism has long been a major theme in the history of political thought, but the years of the English free state are often overlooked. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including the vast political pamphlet literature of the era, The Political Thought of the English Free State, 1649–1653 offers a provocative reassessment of the English Revolution and an original new perspective on English republicanism. Markku Peltonen explores the arguments in defence of the English free state and demonstrates the profound importance of the republican period. The pamphleteers who defended the free state maintained that the people, or their representatives, could alter the form of government whenever they deemed it advantageous, put forward powerful anti-monarchical arguments and widely shared the republican conviction that individual freedom could only materialise in a free state. Peltonen also highlights the unprecedented debate over whether the free state was an aristocracy or democracy and shows how, for the first time in English history, democracy was not only robustly defended but understood as representative.

Rhetoric, Politics and Popularity in Pre-Revolutionary England

Rhetoric, Politics and Popularity in Pre-Revolutionary England PDF Author: Markku Peltonen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107028299
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 287

Book Description
This book provides an account of early modern political culture by emphasizing the centrality of humanist rhetoric in it.

Humanism and Protestantism in Early Modern English Education

Humanism and Protestantism in Early Modern English Education PDF Author: Ian Green
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317119622
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 401

Book Description
This volume is the first attempt to assess the impact of both humanism and Protestantism on the education offered to a wide range of adolescents in the hundreds of grammar schools operating in England between the Reformation and the Enlightenment. By placing that education in the context of Lutheran, Calvinist and Jesuit education abroad, it offers an overview of the uses to which Latin and Greek were put in English schools, and identifies the strategies devised by clergy and laity in England for coping with the tensions between classical studies and Protestant doctrine. It also offers a reassessment of the role of the 'godly' in English education, and demonstrates the many ways in which a classical education came to be combined with close support for the English Crown and established church. One of the major sources used is the school textbooks which were incorporated into the 'English Stock' set up by leading members of the Stationers' Company of London and reproduced in hundreds of thousands of copies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although the core of classical education remained essentially the same for two centuries, there was a growing gulf between the methods by which classics were taught in elite institutions such as Winchester and Westminster and in the many town and country grammar schools in which translations or bilingual versions of many classical texts were given to weaker students. The success of these new translations probably encouraged editors and publishers to offer those adults who had received little or no classical education new versions of works by Aesop, Cicero, Ovid, Virgil, Seneca and Caesar. This fascination with ancient Greece and Rome left its mark not only on the lifestyle and literary tastes of the educated elite, but also reinforced the strongly moralistic outlook of many of the English laity who equated virtue and good works with pleasing God and meriting salvation.

British Political Thought, 1500-1660

British Political Thought, 1500-1660 PDF Author: Glenn Burgess
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1137087978
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 442

Book Description
Focusing on the interaction of religion and politics, this is a comprehensive chronological survey of the political thought of post-Reformation Britain which examines the work of a wide range of thinkers.

Shakespeare and Republicanism

Shakespeare and Republicanism PDF Author: Andrew Hadfield
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781139445412
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 396

Book Description
This groundbreaking work, first published in 2005, reveals exactly how Shakespeare was influenced by contemporary strands in political thought that were critical of the English crown and constitution. Shakespeare has often been seen as a conservative political thinker characterised by an over-riding fear of the 'mob'. Hadfield argues instead that Shakespeare's writing emerged out of an intellectual milieu fascinated by republican ideas. From the 1590s onwards, he explored republican themes in his poetry and plays: political assassination, elected government, alternative constitutions, and, perhaps most importantly of all, the problem of power without responsibility. Beginning with Shakespeare's apocalyptic representation of civil war in the Henry VI plays, Hadfield provides a series of powerful new readings of Shakespeare and his time. For anyone interested in Shakespeare and Renaissance culture, this book is required reading.

Republicanism

Republicanism PDF Author: Fabrizio Ricciardelli
Publisher: Viella Libreria Editrice
ISBN: 8833135543
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
We live in a world in which almost all states purport to be republican. Very few adhere to the Ciceronian concept of res publica, understood as “that which belongs to the popolo (respublica respopuli) [...] and which has the observance of the law and the commonality of interests as its foundation”. The concept of republicanism is traditionally connected to the principle that true political freedom consists of not being subject to the arbitrary will of any man or group of men, and it requires equality of civil and political rights. Republicanism has attracted scholars who aim to develop insights from the classical republican tradition into an attractive political doctrine suitable for modern pluralistic societies. The volume examines republicanism from an historical and theoretical perspective after many years of scholarly investigation and debate.

The Monarchical Republic of Early Modern England

The Monarchical Republic of Early Modern England PDF Author: John F. McDiarmid
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317023838
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
With its challenging, paradoxical thesis that Elizabethan England was a 'republic which happened also to be a monarchy', Patrick Collinson's 1987 essay 'The Monarchical Republic of Queen Elizabeth I' instigated a proliferation of research and lively debate about quasi-republican aspects of Tudor and Stuart England. In this volume, a distinguished international group of scholars examines the idea of the 'monarchical republic' from the 1530s to the 1640s, and tests the concept from a variety of points of view. New suggestions are advanced about the pattern of development of quasi-republican tendencies and of opposition to them, and about their relation to the politics of earlier and later periods. A number of essays focus on the political activity of leading figures at court; several analyse political life in towns or rural areas; others discuss education, rhetoric, linguistic thought and reading practices, poetic and dramatic texts, the relations of politics to religious conflict, gendered conceptions of the monarchy, and 'monarchical republicanism' in the new American colonies. Differing positions in the scholarly debate about early modern English republicanism are represented, and fresh archival research advances the study of quasi-republican elements in early modern English politics.

Rethinking The Foundations of Modern Political Thought

Rethinking The Foundations of Modern Political Thought PDF Author: Annabel Brett
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 113945997X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 27

Book Description
Quentin Skinner's classic study The Foundations of Modern Political Thought was first published by Cambridge in 1978. This was the first of a series of outstanding publications that have changed forever the way the history of political thought is taught and practised. Rethinking the Foundations of Modern Political Thought looks afresh at the impact of the original work, asks why it still matters, and considers a number of significant agendas that it still inspires. A very distinguished international team of contributors has been assembled, including John Pocock, Richard Tuck and David Armitage, and the result is an unusually powerful and cohesive contribution to the history of ideas, of interest to large numbers of students of early modern history and political thought. In conclusion, Skinner replies to each chapter and presents his own thoughts on the latest trends and the future direction of the history of political thought.