Perspectives on English Revolutionary Republicanism

Dirk Wiemann is Professor of English Literature at the University of Potsdam, Germany. Along with a keen interest in postcolonial studies, his research focuses on the areas of seventeenth-century English republicanism and radicalism, emotion studies and contemporary representations of the English Civil War. His publications include Genres of Modernity: Contemporary Indian Novels in English (Editions Rodopi B.V., 2008) and a number of articles on aspects of cultural politics in seventeenth-century England. Gaby Mahlberg is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern British History at Northumbria University, UK. She has previously taught at the University of East Anglia, Queen Mary College and Goldsmiths in the UK, and Humboldt University, Berlin and the University of Potsdam in Germany, and is author of Henry Neville and English Republican Culture in the Seventeenth Century: Dreaming of Another Game (Manchester University Press, 2009).

• Contents: Introduction: perspectives on English revolutionary republicanism, Dirk Wiemann and Gaby Mahlberg; Part I Republican Language: Harrington and the oligarchs: Milton, Vane, and Stubbe, Martin Dzelzainis; Anti-republican cries under Cromwell: the vehement attacks of Robert Filmer against republican practice and republican theory in the early 1650s, Cesare Cuttica; Language and content: the political thought of Algernon Sidney between republicanism and Enlightenment, Günther Lottes. Part II Republican Culture: Literary and Political Culture: The prose romance of the 1650s as a context for Oceana, J.C. Davis; Performing republics: negotiations of political discourse in Restoration comedies, Anette Pankratz; The fatal contagiousness of French republicanism: Edmund Burke and the body politic, Gerold Sedlmayr; Harrington, petitioning, and the construction of public opinion, Edward Vallance. Part III Republican Religion: ’None can love freedom heartily, but good men’: Milton’s religious republicanism, Dirk Vanderbeke; Religion in Harrington’s political system: the central concepts and methods of Harrington’s religious solutions, Luc Borot; Mosaica respublica: Harrington, Toland, and Moses, Justin Champion; Postscript: republicanism: theory, culture, and history, Glenn Burgess; Bibliography; Index.

'... the collection effectively demolishes any notion of English insularity regarding the political thinking of the Interregnum, and anybody interested in the lives and adventures of texts rather than human beings will read the book with profit.' Journal for the Study of British Cultures 'Collectively, the essays in this volume highlight the complexity in untangling the threads of English republicanism as it wove its way through two centuries of continental thought, and in doing so very clearly demonstrate the benefits of a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach.' Seventeenth Century 'This volume offers refinements rather than breakthroughs. But the refinements are significant: the level of scholarship is generally high and at times outstanding, as attested by the volume’s comprehensive bibliography.' Renaissance Quarterly