Writing Conscience and the Nation in Revolutionary England

by Giuseppina Iacona Lobo

Overview

Examining works by well-known figures of the English Revolution, including John Milton, Oliver Cromwell, Margaret Fell Fox, Lucy Hutchinson, Thomas Hobbes, and King Charles I, Giuseppina Iacono Lobo presents the first comprehensive study of conscience during this crucial and turbulent period.

Writing Conscience and the Nation in Revolutionary England argues that the discourse of conscience emerged as a means of critiquing, discerning, and ultimately reimagining the nation during the English Revolution. Focusing on the etymology of the term conscience, to know with, this book demonstrates how the idea of a shared knowledge uniquely equips conscience with the potential to forge dynamic connections between the self and nation, a potential only amplified by the surge in conscience writing in the mid-seventeenth-century. Iacono Lobo recovers a larger cultural discourse at the heart of which is a revolution of conscience itself through her readings of poetry, prose, political pamphlets and philosophy, letters, and biography. This revolution of conscience is marked by a distinct and radical connection between conscience and the nation as writers struggle to redefine, reimagine, and even render anew what it means to know with as an English people.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487512705
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	08/28/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Giuseppina Iacono Lobo is an assistant professor in the Department of English at Loyola University Maryland.

Table of Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Revolutions of Conscience

Chapter 1: Charles I, Eikon Basilike, and the Pulpit-Work of the King’s Conscience

Chapter 2: Oliver Cromwell and the Duties of Conscience

Chapter 3: Early Quaker Writing and the Unifying Light of Conscience

Chapter 4: Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan and the Civilizing Force of Conscience

Chapter 5: Lucy Hutchinson’s Revisions of Conscience

Chapter 6: Milton’s Nation of Conscience

Afterword

Notes

Bibliography

What People are Saying About This

Bernard Capp

"This is an important and innovative work. It displays very high standards of scholarship and analysis, is original in conception and approach, and makes a significant and stimulating contribution to its field. The arguments are persuasive, often compelling, and are presented clearly and cogently."

David Loewenstein

"Writing Conscience and the Nation in Revolutionary England is an excellent study, one which will contribute significantly to scholarship on writing, religion, and politics in the English Revolution. It is persuasive, illuminating, and clearly written."

Editorial Reviews

"This is an important and perceptive book which sheds new light on individual authors’ engagements with these issues through close textual analysis…"

—G. Mahlberg, Berlin, The English Historical Review, vol 134 no 568

"This is an important and innovative work. It displays very high standards of scholarship and analysis, is original in conception and approach, and makes a significant and stimulating contribution to its field. The arguments are persuasive, often compelling, and are presented clearly and cogently."

—Bernard Capp, Department of History, University of Warwick

" Writing Conscience and the Nation in Revolutionary England is an excellent study, one which will contribute significantly to scholarship on writing, religion, and politics in the English Revolution. It is persuasive, illuminating, and clearly written."

—David Loewenstein, Department of English, Pennsylvania State University at University Park

From the Publisher

"This is an important and perceptive book which sheds new light on individual authors' engagements with these issues through close textual analysis..."

The English Historical Review, vol 134 no 568 - G. Mahlberg