Writing the English Republic: Poetry, Rhetoric and Politics 1627-1660

• Published in: Bunyan studies no. 10; p. 95
• Main Author: Watson, Alistair E
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Newcastle Upon Tyne Northumbria University, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Arts, Design and Social Sciences 01.01.2001
• Subjects: British & Irish literature; Bunyan, John (1628-1688); English language; English literature; Poetry; Politics; Rhetoric; Wither, George (1588-1667)
• ISSN: 0954-0970

Norbrook demonstrates too how consideration of Machiavelli' s Discourses in, for example, the work of the indefatigable George Wither or that of the arch-republican Henry Marten, continues a tradition of civic humanism which looks back to republican models in Livy and Cicero. Underpinning the theoretical argument of the book is an exploitation of speech act theory as a 'reinvention of rhetoric' specifically appropriate to the public nature of the texts considered. Ground broken by Christopher Hill in Milton and the English Revolution (1977) is liberally irrigated by Norbrook's 'continuing stream of allusions to the Pharsalia" , yielding insights to which his preceding argument lends authority.