Winstanley the Digger : a literary analysis of radical ideas in the English Revolution

Gerrard Winstanley was founder of the Utopian Digger colony in Surrey, a radical attempt to till land in common and assert the rights of the rural poor. A prodigious pamphleteer and preacher to the left of Cromwell, Winstanley is the quintessential English Christian communist.This book provides a complete literary analysis of all of Winstanley’s works. Moreover it explores the connection between literature and politics by examining Winstanley’s dialectical use of alchemical symbolism, a use which embodies the development of his ideas. T. Wilson Hayes explains how Winstanley grounds his view of natural and historical change in Scriptural interpretation and bases his plan for civil society on his idea of the Utopian family. The purpose of this first full-scale study of Winstanley is to show that he defies categorization as mystic or materialist and is best seen as an immensely talented poet-prophet in the tradition of Langland and Blake. Gerrard Winstanley, a 'True Leveller', is known as the founder of the Digger colony in Surrey in 1649, a radical attempt to till land in common and thus assert the rights of the rural poor against the lords of the manors. A prodigious pamphleteer and preacher to the left of Cromwell, Winstanley is the quintessential English Christian communist. This book bridges the gap previous writers have seen between the ecstatic millenarian of the early pamphlets and the later communist theoretician. Moreover, it explores the connection between literature and politics by examining Winstanley's dialectical use of alchemical symbolism, a use that forcefully embodies the development of his ideas. Hayes explains how Winstanley grounds his view of natural and historical change in scriptural interpretation and bases his plan for civil society on the ideal of the utopian family. This first full-scale study of Winstanley shows that he defies categorization as mystic or materialist and is best seen as an immensely talented poet-prophet in the tradition of Langland and Blake. PREFACE CONTENTS I. THE RISING SUN II. THE DARKENING CLOUD III. OIL IN HIS LAMP IV. THE SEED OF LIFE V. THE IMPRISONED EARTH NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE INDEX T. Wilson Hayes. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.