Ravishment of Reason

Brandon Chua is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Queensland node of the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (Europe 1100-1800), where he is currently researching the literary culture of the English 1650s in relation to the civil wars and Interregnum. He also teaches early modern and eighteenth-century literature at The University of Queensland.

• ContentsAcknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction One: “Heroicall Pictures”: Government and the Restoration Heroic Play Two: “New Rights we Grant not, but the Old Declare”: History, Friendship, and Consent in Roger Boyle’s Henry V (1664) Three: “Tis All but Ceremony Which Is Past”: Conversion and Heroic Passions in John Dryden’s The Conquest of Granada, Parts One and Two (1670-1672) Four: Shakespeare's History Lesson: John Crowne's Misery of Civil War (1680) Five: “Cajoling the People with his Known Industry”: The Passions and Spectacular Politics in Nathaniel Lee’s Lucius Junius BrutusSix: The Politics of Cowardice: Fear, Interest, and Security in Aphra Behn’s The Widdow Ranter (1689) Seven: “Half Loath and Half Consenting”: Interpretive Relativism and Incest in John Dryden's Don Sebastian (1690) ConclusionBibliographyIndexAbout the Author

[An] intelligent reconsideration of the Restoration heroic play.