Literature, Gender and Politics During the English Civil War by Diane Purkiss
In this innovative study, Diane Purkiss illuminates the role of gender in the English Civil War by focusing on ideas of masculinity, rather than on the role of women, which has hitherto received more attention. Historians have tended to emphasise a model of human action in the Civil War based on the idea of the human self as rational animal. Purkiss reveals the irrational ideological forces governing the way seventeenth-century writers understood the state, the monarchy, the battlefield and the epic hero in relation to contested contemporary ideas of masculinity. She analyses the writings of Marvell, Waller, Herrick and the Caroline elegists, as well as in newsbooks and pamphlets, and pays particular attention to Milton's complex responses to the dilemmas of male identity. This study will appeal to scholars of seventeenth-century literature as well as those working in intellectual history and the history of gender.
'[Literature, Gender and Politics During the English Civil War] is a truly exceptional studyWhen Purkiss writes that 'the wager of this book has been that it is entirely possible that the Civil War - the war of the battlefields, but also of the writings, of politics and ideas - was, among other things, an opportunity for the creation and discharge of tensions implicit in early modern masculinity, a masculinity [both] socially and psychically constructed' … she is simply hedging her bets. The wager has already paid off. Purkiss has written an altogether convincing and historically attentive account of masculine identity in mid-century England. Through careful and meticulous methodological rigor, she has also provided her readers with the theoretical apparatus to carry out similar research in other historical sites and venues.' History of Intellectual Culture
Diane Purkiss is a Fellow and Tutor at the University of Oxford's Keble College. She is the author of The Witch in History and At the Bottom of the Garden, both of which have received critical praise. She has a B.A. in English. and a Ph.D. from the University of Queensland. from Oxford's Merton College She currently resides in Oxford, UK.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780521152761 |
| ISBN 10 | 0521152763 |
| Title | Literature, Gender and Politics During the English Civil War |
| Author | Diane Purkiss |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Year published | 2010-08-12 |
| Number of pages | 308 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |