Some Current Publications

Individuals

Aphra Behn

Bowers, Toni. "Behn's Monmouth: Sedition, Seduction, and Tory Ideology in the 1680s." Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture 38 (2009): 15-44. Bowers investigates contemporary reactions to the execution of James, Duke of Monmouth, who attempted to depose his uncle James II in 1685. Both his Whig supporters and his Tory foes used "the trope of seduction" to illustrate "Monmouth's paradoxical agency in his own day." According to Bowers, "Aphra Behn's retelling of Monmouth's story in Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister (1684–87) claimed for Tory partisan purposes the fallen prince's history as seduced seducer, exploiting the plot paradigms and narrative topoi characteristic of seduction fiction in her day." Though opposed to the Monmouth Rebellion, Behn joined other Tories in depicting Monmouth as "more the victim of seduction than an evil seducer." Bowers argues that, in Behn's version, "virtuous resistance and its supposed opposite, damning complicity, emerge as overlapping practices, not distinct alternatives."

Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington

Jacobsen, Helen. "Luxury Consumption, Cultural Politics, and the Career of the Earl of Arlington, 1660-1685." The Historical Journal 52 (2009): 295-317. Jacobsen considers Arlington's statecraft in light of his artistic patronage, concluding that Arlington "appreciated the power of the arts to influence and impress and used the cultural mediation of the English diplomatic network in his control to help skilfully fashion his domestic political identity." As lord chamberlain from 1674 to 1685, Arlington took care to disseminate his "taste for French fashions." These fashions strengthened the royal image, for "French taste was absolutist, autocratic, and characterized by an abundance of material trappings." In short, Arlington "understood the memorializing quality of art."

Robert Boyle

Hunter, Michael. Boyle: Between God and Science. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 2009. Hunter notes that we have "hitherto lacked … a proper biography of Boyle, essentially narrative in structure, providing a detailed account of the different phases of his life, and exploring his overall mental and intellectual development." Accordingly, Hunter takes into account recent discoveries: Boyle's deep piety, his interest in alchemy, and the importance of the memoir he dictated to Gilbert Burnet. Hunter also traces Boyle's intellectual legacy in the years after his death, observing that "his scientific achievement came to be taken for granted or, worse, to be seen as outmoded in light of more recent developments."

See also: SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY (Davenport).

Thomas Hobbes

Abosch, Yishaiya. "Hope, Fear, and the Mollification of the Vanquished in Hobbes's Behemoth or the Long Parliament." Political Research Quarterly 62 (2009): 16-28. Abosch contends that Hobbes's Behemoth or the Long Parliament (1668), a fictional conversation between student and teacher, uses dialogue to reduce "the student's parochialism while strengthening his hope that peace can be achieved through lawful measures." Reeling from the effects of the Civil War, the monarchist student fears "destruction at the hands of domestic 'enemies,'" but his teacher reminds him that "all individuals [are] insatiable seekers of power." However, Abosch claims Hobbes tempers this opinion by urging "a new hope in the efficacy of depersonalized political institutions," such as those of the Restoration government.

Collins, Jeffrey R. "Interpreting Thomas Hobbes in Competing Contexts." Journal of the History of Ideas 70 (2009): 165-188. Responding to A.P. Martinich's criticism of his earlier work on Hobbes in The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes, Collins reaffirms his position that Hobbes's "obsession with the question of church polity" affected his political positions during the Civil War and led him to endorse the radical positions of the Interregnum. Drawing particular attention to chapter 47 of the Leviathan and the differences he and Martinich draw from the rhetorical and contextual moves therein, Collins grapples with questions of approach and evidence in determining Hobbes' theological and ecclesiastical sincerity (TMS).

Martinich, A. P. "Interpreting the Religion of Thomas Hobbes: An Exchange." Journal of the History of Ideas 70 (2009): 143-163. Martinich defends his view of Hobbes as a reformed Christian of a Calvinist bent against Jeffrey Collins's argument that Hobbes was hostile to religion, if not an atheist. Collins and Martinich agree on the characterization...