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Article: Civic humanism and gender politics in Jonson's Catiline.
- Article from:
- Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900
- Article date:
- March 22, 2005
- Author:
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Most intellectual and cultural historians accept J. G. A. Pocock's claim that civic humanist discourse petered out in England after the middle of the sixteenth century, to return in a republican form only in the 1640s. (1) Markku Peltonen and David Norbrook have recently challenged Pocock's narrative and shown the influence of civic humanist and republican ideas between 1580 and 1640. Neither denies, though, that civic humanism was a marginal discourse during this time. (2) Like Pocock, they see increasing political absolutism as the primary factor explaining its marginalization. In this essay, I suggest another apparently unrelated factor: concern about ...