The Poetics and Politics of Youth in Milton's England
Author | : Blaine Greteman |
Publisher | : Cambridge University Press |
Total Pages | : 265 |
Release | : 2013-08-19 |
ISBN-10 | : 9781107434790 |
ISBN-13 | : 1107434793 |
Rating | : 4/5 (90 Downloads) |
Download or read book The Poetics and Politics of Youth in Milton's England written by Blaine Greteman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-19 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the notion of government by consent took hold in early modern England, many authors used childhood and maturity to address contentious questions of political representation - about who has a voice and who can speak on his or her own behalf. For John Milton, Ben Jonson, William Prynne, Thomas Hobbes and others, the period between infancy and adulthood became a site of intense scrutiny, especially as they examined the role of a literary education in turning children into political actors. Drawing on new archival evidence, Blaine Greteman argues that coming of age in the seventeenth century was a uniquely political act. His study makes a compelling case for understanding childhood as a decisive factor in debates over consent, autonomy and political voice, and will offer graduate students and scholars a new perspective on the emergence of apolitical children's literature in the eighteenth century.