Milton and Radicalism

Making Milton ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 198-215
Author(s):  
Nigel Smith
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Historical Scholarship ◽  
Half Century ◽  
English Revolution ◽  
Political Thinker ◽  
Domestic Reform ◽  
Historical Nature

In the half-century before the quatercentenary of Milton’s birth in 2008, the dominant attention to his poetry and prose was of a historical nature and focused on exploring in detail his career as an apologist for aspects of the English Revolution: versions of radical Puritanism; republicanism; and domestic reform in the shape of the divorce argument. Yet the recent resurgence of formalist approaches, with particular focus on the poetry, has obscured or banished the politics, and work on Milton and philosophical/scientific reform has produced a picture not of the seventeenth-century Voltaire or Jefferson but of a republican Newton. This chapter insists on Milton’s identity as a radical religious and political thinker, writer, and actor, over and against some recent contrary arguments, taking account of a more recent return to historical scholarship, where some of that work has been inspired by changing definitions of radicalism in our own time.

James Harrington

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Hammersley
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
English Revolution ◽  
Relevant Today ◽  
Literary Figure ◽  
History Of ◽  
Philosophical Debates ◽  
Political Thinker

James Harrington was a significant political and intellectual figure of the mid-seventeenth century, whose life and works embody the complex and contested web of political, religious and cultural ideas that lay at the heart of the English Revolution. His innovative constitutional proposals exercised a profound influence on political debate during that period and for at least two centuries thereafter, and his insights - particularly on democracy - remain relevant today. The complexity of Harrington’s thought has been under-appreciated by scholars in recent years due to the tendency to view him solely from the perspective of republicanism. While research into English republicanism has enriched accounts of seventeenth-century England and the history of political thought, it has also narrowed and obscured our perspective on Harrington. This book offers a broader account of Harrington’s life and work. It addresses Harrington’s contributions to the parliamentary cause and his role as the English agent of Charles I’s nephew, the Prince Elector Palatine. It takes seriously Harrington’s role as a literary figure and his engagement with historical, religious, scientific, and philosophical debates. It puts the case for Harrington as a radical political thinker, committed to democracy and social mobility. It also shows that in a variety of areas he deliberately pursued a middle path, or a balance, between different positions so as to promote reconciliation among a variety of groups. The broader view of Harrington offered here has implications both for our understanding of the seventeenth century and for the discipline of intellectual history.

Orthodox Radicals

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew C. Bingham
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
Religious Toleration ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Infant Baptism ◽  
English Revolution ◽  
Baptist Identity ◽  
Ongoing Project

Orthodox Radicals explores the origins and identity of Baptists during the English Revolution (1640–1660), arguing that mid-seventeenth century Baptists did not, in fact, understand themselves to be part of a larger, all-encompassing “Baptist” movement. Contrary to both the explicit statements of many historians and the tacit suggestion embedded in the very use of “Baptist” as an overarching historical category, the early modern men and women who rejected infant baptism would not have initially understood that single theological move as being in itself constitutive of a new group identity. Rather, the rejection of infant baptism was but one of a number of doctrinal revisions then taking place among English puritans eager to further their ongoing project of godly reformation. Orthodox Radicals thus complicates our understanding of Baptist identity and addresses broader themes including early modern religious toleration, the mechanisms by which early modern groups defined and defended themselves, and the perennial problem of historical anachronism. By combining a provocative reinterpretation Baptist identity with close readings of key theological and political texts, Orthodox Radicals offers the most original and stimulating analysis of mid-seventeenth century Baptists in decades.

Figuring Faith and Female Power in the Art of Rubens

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Vanessa Lyon
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Attitudes Toward Women ◽  
Court Culture ◽  
Peter Paul Rubens ◽  
Catholic Theology ◽  
Historical Scholarship ◽  
Cultural Attitudes ◽  
Female Power

Figuring Faith and Female Power in the Art of Rubens argues that the Baroque painter, propagandist, and diplomat, Peter Paul Rubens, was not only aware of rapidly shifting religious and cultural attitudes toward women, but actively engaged in shaping them. Today, Rubens’s paintings continue to be used -- and abused -- to prescribe and proscribe certain forms of femininity. Repositioning some of the artist’s best-known works within seventeenth-century Catholic theology and female court culture, this book provides a feminist corrective to a body of art historical scholarship in which studies of gender and religion are often mutually exclusive. Moving chronologically through Rubens’s lengthy career, the author shows that, in relation to the powerful women in his life, Rubens figured the female form as a transhistorical carrier of meaning whose devotional and rhetorical efficacy was heightened rather than diminished by notions of female difference and particularity.

scholarly journals ‘Et pour les Belges la même chose’?

2021 ◽  
Vol 136 (2) ◽  
pp. 24-41
Author(s):  
Marc Boone ◽  
Tom Verschaffel
Keyword(s):  
The South ◽  
Historical Scholarship ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
University History ◽  
Past Half

Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden was en is een Nederlands-Belgisch project. Belgische, in de realiteit enkel Vlaamse, historici hebben een rol gespeeld in de redactie en als auteurs van bijdragen. Het aandeel van het Zuiden is altijd kleiner geweest dan dat van het Noorden. Het tijdschrift poogde via een (meestal) paritaire samenstelling van de redactie en initiatieven, zoals comparatief opgezette themadossiers, de balans te herstellen. Aangezien het tijdschrift, zeker wat het Zuiden betreft, nauw verbonden was met de universitaire historische vakgroepen, in het bijzonder die van Gent en Leuven, weerspiegelen de evoluties van dit Belgische aandeel algemene verschuivingen in het academisch bedrijf. Uitbreiding van de onderzoeksfinanciering zorgde voor een aangroei en voor een verjonging en vervrouwelijking van het auteursbestand en van de redactie. Ook andere ontwikkelingen in het historisch bedrijf van de voorbije halve eeuw, zoals het verschijnen van nieuwe tijdschriften en de internationalisering van het onderzoek, hadden een impact op de plaats van het tijdschrift en bijgevolg ook op Vlaamse bijdragen en hun auteurs.Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden was and is a Dutch-Belgian project. Belgian, though in fact only Flemish, historians have edited and authored contributions. The share from the South has always been smaller than that from the North. Via a generally balanced composition of the editorial board and initiatives, such as comparatively structured special issues and forums, the journal aimed to restore the balance. Since the journal, especially in the South, was closely affiliated with university history departments, those of the universities of Ghent and Leuven in particular, the evolutions of this Belgian share therefore reflect general shifts in academia. Expansion of research financing brought about accretion, rejuvenation and feminisation of the stock of authors and editors alike. Other developments in historical scholarship from the past half century, such as the appearance of new journals and internationalisation of research, had an impact on the positioning of the journal and consequently on Flemish contributions and their authors as well.

Military Service and Material Gain on the Ottoman–Hapsburg Frontier

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK STEIN
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Economic Opportunity ◽  
Historical Scholarship ◽  
Economic Opportunities ◽  
Frederick Jackson Turner ◽  
Material Gain ◽  
Economic Advancement

Just over a century ago, Frederick Jackson Turner presented his famous Frontier Thesis, which continues to be one of the most debated and controversial theories in historical scholarship and has affected all discussions of frontier history worldwide. This chapter explores one aspect of Turner's work that may be applicable to other frontiers — that of the frontier as a zone of economic opportunity. It discusses how military service on the seventeenth-century Ottoman-Hapsburg frontier presented a number of chances for economic advancement to men who were willing to take the risks of living and working along the border. Moving to the frontier offered economic opportunities not found in the interior. In North America, a large part of the opportunity was the potential to acquire land. It is possible that in some cases there was similar opportunity along the seventeenth-century Ottoman-Hapsburg frontier.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Matthew C. Bingham
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
The Self ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
English Revolution ◽  
The World ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
To Come ◽  
Considerable Body

Ushering the reader into both the world of early modern radical religion and the considerable body of scholarly literature devoted to its study, the introduction offers a précis of what is to come and a backward glance to explain how the proposed journey contributes to ongoing scholarly conversations. After orienting readers to the basic methodological boundaries within which the book will operate and briefly situating the book within the wider historiography, the introduction adumbrates the shape of the work as a whole and encapsulates its central argument. The introduction contends that the mid-seventeenth-century men and women often described as “Particular Baptists” would not have readily understood themselves as such. This tension between the self-identity of the early modern actors and the identity imposed upon them by future scholars has significant implications for how we understand both radical religion during the English Revolution and the period more broadly.

George Fox, Millenarian

1992 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Larry Ingle
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Small Step ◽  
English Revolution ◽  
Charles I ◽  
New Jerusalem ◽  
Divine Intervention ◽  
George Fox ◽  
Widespread Interest

“Friends, take heed of setting up that which God will throw down, lest you be found fighters against God.”The nearly two decades comprising the period of the English Revolution were marked by a widespread interest in the timely appearance of the millennium, the thousand year period of Christ's promised earthly reign. From scholarly biblical studies of Daniel and Revelation to omens such as total eclipses of the sun and rumors of a Nottingham girl returning from the dead to warn a sinful world of approaching destruction, people in revolutionary England were bombarded with “evidence” of divine intervention and the expected arrival of the new kingdom. Parliament's victory in the English civil wars and its execution of Charles I in 1649 dramatically blew away the aura of divinity surrounding the monarchy and promised a new and glorious age. As they read prophecies in Revelation about a New Jerusalem where God would dry all tears and banish death, sorrow, and pain, enthusiasts of the seventeenth century anxiously looked for the Christ who promised, “Behold, I come quickly.” So prevalent were such notions that, as one authority has stressed, popular millenarianism seemed only a small step beyond received orthodoxy.

A Half Century of Southern Historical Scholarship

1945 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wendell H. Stephenson
Keyword(s):  
Historical Scholarship ◽  
Half Century

Civilian Society and Political Power in the Ottoman Empire: A Report on Research in Collective Biography (1480–1830)

1985 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suraiya Faroqhi
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
Public Office ◽  
English Revolution ◽  
Research Technique ◽  
Collective Biography ◽  
Roman Antiquity

Prosopography, or collective biography, as this field of study is sometimes called by scholars dealing with periods later than Greek and Roman antiquity, is a relatively simple and unsophisticated research technique. Basically, it consists of assembling and comparing biographical data for all individuals belonging to a clearly circumscribed group of people. Frequently, but not necessarily, the individuals in question held public office of some kind. This technique recommends itself by the fact that it can be applied even to periods on which very little evidence is available, such as the Roman Republic But on a different level, prosopography can also contribute to our understanding of societies with a fairly rich documentation. Thus, quite a few items among the more recent literature cited by Lawrence Stone in his book on the causes of the seventeenth-century English revolution might be described at least in part upon prosopographical techniques. In the same vein, the research technique has been used by a number of scholars to shed some light upon the institutions and society of the Ottoman Empire.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document