Open Subjects: Renaissance Republicans, Modern Selfhoods And The Virtue Of Vulnerability (edinburgh Critical Studies In Renaissance Culture)

James Kuzner's original new study of writing by Spenser, Shakespeare, Marvell, and Milton presents a geneaology for the modern self that understands its republican origins far more radically than previous studies. He draws radical and republican thought into sustained conversation, locating an unexpected republic where vulnerability is as much what community has to offer as what community guards against. At a time when the drive to safeguard citizens has gathered momentum to justify almost any state action, Open Subjects questions whether vulnerability is the evil we so often believe it to be. Studies of the republican legacy have proliferated in recent years, always to argue for a polity that cultivates the virtues, protections, and entitlements which foster the self's ability to simulate an invulnerable existence. James Kuzner's original new study of writing by Spenser, Shakespeare, Marvell and Milton is the first to present a genealogy for the modern self in which its republican origins can be understood far more radically. In doing so, the study is also the first to draw radical and republican thought into sustained conversation, and to locate a republic for which vulnerability is, unexpectedly, as much what community has to offer as it is what community guards against. At a time when the drive to safeguard citizens has gathered enough momentum to justify almost any state action, Open Subjects questions whether vulnerability is the evil we so often believe it to be.Key features:• First study to explore how early modern republican and contemporary radical thought connect with and complement each other• Traces the presence of English republicanism from the late sixteenth century to the late seventeenth • Analyses Renaissance literary texts in the context of classical, early modern, andcontemporary political thought to add to how we think about selfhood in the present• Offers illuminating new readings of the place that English Renaissance figures occupy in histories of friendship, the public sphere, and selfhood more generally Studies of the republican legacy have proliferated in recent years, always to argue for a polity that cultivates the virtues, protections, and entitlements which foster the self's ability to simulate an invulnerable existence. James Kuzner's original new study of writing by Spenser, Shakespeare, Marvell and Milton is the first to present a genealogy for the modern self in which its republican origins can be understood far more radically. In doing so, the study is also the first to draw radical and republican thought into sustained conversation, and to locate a republic for which vulnerability is, unexpectedly, as much what community has to offer as it is what community guards against. At a time when the drive to safeguard citizens has gathered enough momentum to justify almost any state action, Open Subjects questions whether vulnerability is the evil we so often believe it to be. Key features First study to explore how early modern republican and contemporary radical thought connect with and complement each other Traces the presence of English republicanism from the late sixteenth century to the late seventeenth Analyses Renaissance literary texts in the context of classical, early modern, and contemporary political thought to add to how we think about selfhood in the present Offers illuminating new readings of the place that English Renaissance figures occupy in histories of friendship, the public sphere, and selfhood more generally Studies of the republican legacy have proliferated in recent years, always to argue for a polity that cultivates the virtues, protections, and entitlements which foster the self's ability to simulate an invulnerable existence. This study of writing by Spenser, Shakespeare, Marvell, and Milton presents a genealogy for the modern self in which its republican origins can be understood far more radically. The author analyses Renaissance literary texts in the context of classical, early modern, and contemporary political thought to add to how we think about selfhood in the present. The book also offers illuminating new readings of the place that English Renaissance figures occupy in histories of friendship, the public sphere, and selfhood more generally. The study draws radical and republican thought into sustained conversation, and locates a republic for which vulnerability is, unexpectedly, as much what community has to offer as it is what community guards against. The book questions whether vulnerability is the evil we so often believe it to be, at a time when the drive to safeguard citizens has gathered enough momentum to justify almost any state action Introduction: vulnerable crests of Renaissance selves Legacies of republicanism, histories of the shelf 'Without respect of utility': precarious life and the politics of Edmund Spenser's Legend of Friendship Unbuilding the city: Coriolanus, Titus Andronicus and the form of openness 'That Transubstantiall solacisme': Andrew Marvell, linguistic vulnerability and the space of the subject Habermas goes to hell: pleasure, public reason and the republicanism of Paradise Lost.