Full Description
The English Civil War was not simply a conflict between two opposing, unstable, complicated alliances of various factions, but a war of words. Supporters of the King and allies of Parliament and the New Model Army clashed over ideals, ideas, and concepts as they each sought to impose their understanding of history and visions of the future, realizing that victory could only be secured by establishing a political and cultural language that would guide and direct those who used it. Accordingly, the Civil War witnessed vociferous arguments over many key English words central to life and thought in the seventeenth century, and often up to the present day. Words at War seeks to bring together scholars of literature, history, religion, and philosophy to analyse the ways in which key terms were deployed and debated in the Civil War and Commonwealth. In doing so it refocuses attention on ideas and concepts that shaped the modern world well beyond the bloody conflict on the battlefield.
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
Part I: God and Providence
1: KATRIN ETTENHUBER: God in Scripture Study Aids
2: VICTORIA SILVER: God in Hobbes
3: MATTHEW AUGUSTINE: Providence in Browne
4: N. H. KEEBLE: Providence in the Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell
Part II: Freedom and Servitude
5: N. H. KEEBLE: Freedom in Early Quaker Tracts
6: PHIL WITHINGTON: Slavery in John Taylor
7: NICHOLAS MCDOWELL: Freedom in the Cavalier Poets
Part III: Nature and Law
8: ANDREW HADFIELD: Nature and Natural Law in Radical Writers
9: PAUL HAMMOND: Law in Clarendon
10: GILLIAN WRIGHT: Nature in Cowley
11: ANDREW HADFIELD: Nature in Lovelace
Part IV: King and People
12: NIALL ALLSOPP: The People in Marvell and Cavendish
13: ALICE HUNT: The King in the Parliamentary Debates of 1657
14: RUTH CONNOLLY: The People in Royalist Women's Writing
15: JACK AVERY: The King and the People in the Newsbooks
Part V: Conscience and Virtue
16: STEWART MOTTRAM: Conscience in Marvell
17: ELIZABETH SAUER: Conscience and Nation in Milton 1640-1660
18: CHRISTOPHER TILMOUTH: Virtue and Defeat in Davenant and Cowley
19: PAUL HAMMOND: Virtue in Milton
Part VI: Legacy
20: BLAIR WORDEN: Checks and Balances: The Birth of a Vocabulary
Bibliography
Index
