The European Marvell

Author(s):  
Nigel Smith

This chapter investigates Marvell’s poetry in the context of three aspects of seventeenth-century European poetry and in light of Marvell’s own connections with the continental Europe of his lifetime, and his interest in European literature in Latin and the vernacular languages. The chapter argues that our understanding of Marvell is far better served by regarding his enterprises as poet, prose writer, and political agent as a part of the particular literary power relationships and the political role of literature that pertained in continental Europe, in many ways differing from English situations. Topics discussed include the patronage and veneration of European poets, the cross-lingual arenas of poetic contest in times of international conflict, and the broader significance of the appeal to Marvell of European poetry, exemplified in the case of the Spanish poet Luis de Góngora y Argote.

1984 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth J. Andrien

The methodological problems involved in studying the political role of corruption and inefficiency have long baffled historians of seventeenth-century Spanish America. Complaints by contemporaries about various forms of corruption (fraudes), abuses (abusos), bribery (cohecho), and other forms of corruption (mala administratión), abound in the extant archivai documents of the period. In addition, successive viceroys and royal inspectors (visitadores) frequently charged that colonial officials were too stupid, lazy, or inexperienced to carry out their duties efficiently. One visitador in 1683, for example, described the administrative practices of high-ranking treasury officials in the viceregal capital of Lima as “la más ciega y descuidada que se ha visto en muchos siglos,” and went on to recommend that such officials be “despoblados de sus plazas, poniendo in su lugar personas capazes y inteligentes.”


2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-431
Author(s):  
Bulat R. Rakhimzianov

Abstract This article explores relations between Muscovy and the so-called Later Golden Horde successor states that existed during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries on the territory of Desht-i Qipchaq (the Qipchaq Steppe, a part of the East European steppe bounded roughly by the Oskol and Tobol rivers, the steppe-forest line, and the Caspian and Aral Seas). As a part of, and later a successor to, the Juchid ulus (also known as the Golden Horde), Muscovy adopted a number of its political and social institutions. The most crucial events in the almost six-century-long history of relations between Muscovy and the Tatars (13–18th centuries) were the Mongol invasion of the Northern, Eastern and parts of the Southern Rus’ principalities between 1237 and 1241, and the Muscovite annexation of the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates between 1552 and 1556. According to the model proposed here, the Tatars began as the dominant partner in these mutual relations; however, from the beginning of the seventeenth century this role was gradually inverted. Indicators of a change in the relationship between the Muscovite grand principality and the Golden Horde can be found in the diplomatic contacts between Muscovy and the Tatar khanates. The main goal of the article is to reveal the changing position of Muscovy within the system of the Later Golden Horde successor states. An additional goal is to revisit the role of the Tatar khanates in the political history of Central Eurasia in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.


Theoria ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 67 (165) ◽  
pp. 92-117
Author(s):  
Bronwyn Leebaw

What kinds of lessons can be learned from stories of those who resisted past abuses and injustices? How should such stories be recovered, and what do they have to teach us about present day struggles for justice and accountability? This paper investigates how Levi, Broz, and Arendt formulate the political role of storytelling as response to distinctive challenges associated with efforts to resist systematic forms of abuse and injustice. It focuses on how these thinkers reflected on such themes as witnesses, who were personally affected, to varying degrees, by atrocities under investigation. Despite their differences, these thinkers share a common concern with the way that organised atrocities are associated with systemic logics and grey zones that make people feel that it would be meaningless or futile to resist. To confront such challenges, Levi, Arendt and Broz all suggest, it is important to recover stories of resistance that are not usually heard or told in ways that defy the expectations of public audiences. Their distinctive storytelling strategies are not rooted in clashing theories of resistance, but rather reflect different perspectives on what is needed to make resistance meaningful in contexts where the failure of resistance is intolerable.


1976 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 211-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. R. Elton

WHEN on the previous two occasions I discussed Parliament and Council as political centres, as institutions capable of assisting or undermining stability in the nation, I had to draw attention to quite a few unanswered questions. However, I also found a large amount of well established knowledge on which to rely. Now, in considering the role of the King's or Queen's Court, I stand more baffled than ever, more deserted. We all know that there was a Court, and we all use the term with frequent ease, but we seem to have taken it so much for granted that we have done almost nothing to investigate it seriously. Lavish descriptions abound of lavish occasions, both in the journalism of the sixteenth century and in the history books, but the sort of study which could really tell us what it was, what part it played in affairs, and even how things went there for this or that person, seems to be confined to a few important articles. At times it has all the appearance of a fully fledged institution; at others it seems to be no more than a convenient conceptual piece of shorthand, covering certain people, certain behaviour, certain attitudes. As so often, the shadows of the seventeenth century stretch back into the sixteenth, to obscure our vision. Analysts of the reigns of the first two Stuarts, endeavouring to explain the political troubles of that age, increasingly concentrate upon an alleged conflict between the Court and the Country; and so we are tempted, once again, to seek the prehistory of the ever interesting topic in the age of Elizabeth or even Henry VIII.


1965 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-200
Author(s):  
J. H. Shennan

The most recent biographer of Montesquieu has written:…the similarity between the ideas of the former president a tnortier and those of the parlements is sometimes striking.…The king, they admit, is the legislator and the fount of justice. The parlements, however, are the repositories of his supreme juris-diction. To remove it from them is to offend the laws of the state and to overthrow the ancient legal structure of the kingdom.…This tradition of the parlements inspired and was inspired by the political doctrine of Montesquieu; and when the President writes of the monarchy of his own day…as being the best form of government that men have been able to imagine, it is monarchy supported by this tradition which he has in mind.


Res Publica ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 371-384
Author(s):  
Lode Van Outrive

We set out by tracking the political vicissitudes of the administration of justice and their connections with a range of phenomena: the neglect by politicians; a series of events and scandals and the very curious reactions of the judicial apparatus; several parliamentary investigation commissions without much effect. Then we take a critical look at partisan politicisation of the magistrature: negative evalution of their output thrives to it; but there are also partisan appointments and promotions, even absence and refusal of training. Many contextual factors hinder a normal, acceptable process of politicisation: over- and underregulation, bad legislation, misconception on contra! over the administration of justice and over judges, non-democratic decisionmaking within the organisation of the magistrature, the development of wrong relationship inside the trias politica; but also other more external conditions were not met neither.  We wind up with an examination of the assesment of recent governmental proposals: an improvement of criminal and judicial inquiries; foundation of a national advisory body for the magistrature; simplification of the legislation; modernisation of the courts activities; a more objective recruitment and selection system; more easy access to justice etc. The question raises as to wether it suffices to tinker with the sy stem of the administration of justice alone ... Between the Belgian and the Italian situations are similarities and relevant differences. 


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