Poetics and Politics of Youth in Milton''s England

This book argues that concepts of youth and childhood were central to seventeenth-century debates about political and poetic voice.

List of contents

Acknowledgments; Abbreviations; Introduction: childish things; Part I. The Growth of Consent and Disciplining of Childhood in Early Modern England: 1. Coming of age on stage: Jonson's epicoene and the politics of childhood in early Stuart England; 2. Children, literature, and the problem of consent; 3. Contract's children: Thomas Hobbes and the culture of subjection; Part II. Milton and the Children of Liberty: 4. 'Perplex't paths': youth and authority in Milton's early work; 5. 'Children of reviving libertie': the radical politics of Milton's pedagogy; 6. 'Youthful beauty': infancy and adulthood among the angels of Paradise Lost; 7. Children of paradise; Epilogue: 'children gathering pebbles on the shore'.

About the author

Blaine Greteman is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Iowa. A Rhodes Scholar and a former contributor to Time magazine, he continues to write for both scholarly and popular publications, including Milton Quarterly, Renaissance Quarterly, ELH, Philological Quarterly, and The Review of English Studies. He earned his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

Summary

Using new archival evidence, this study casts coming of age as the consummate political act, and argues for an understanding of childhood that acknowledges children's roles in seventeenth-century debates over consent, autonomy and political voice.

Product details

• Authors: Blaine Greteman, Blaine (University of Iowa) Greteman, Greteman Blaine
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 19.08.2013
• EAN: 9781107038080
• ISBN: 978-1-107-03808-0
• No. of pages: 264
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies; English, Literary studies: classical, early & medieval, Literary studies: general, Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: poetry and poets