Writing the English Republic

Reviews / Votes

'[A] fine and important book ... I suspect that Writing the English Republic will have as large and lasting an impact as any previous or readily foreseeable study of the relationship between literature and politics in seventeenth-century England. [Norbrook] writes in an attractively exploratory spirit which resists dogmatism and the sealing of argument.' Blair Worden The Times Literary Supplement 'This is a profoundly important book and a really remarkable achievement. The historical scholarship is masterly, the intelligence and perceptiveness of the literary analysis is outstanding, and the book itself is beautifully and powerfully written. It is as important a book about seventeenth-century English republicanism as it is about seventeenth-century English poetry.' Jonathan Scott 'The case for the republican conscience resounds most eloquently in the impressive coda to this book ... By paying proper attention to poets and historians, Norbrook is able to show that republicanism's roots went deep into the political culture of the 1640s, and even earlier ... But the pay-off for historians stems above all from Norbrook's decision to produce a theme-driven argument instead of a general survey. This has led him to dig deep into the textual remains of the Revolution, rather than content himself with the familiar surface structures.' London Review of Books