ABOUT THIS BOOK

It is a common belief that scripture has no place in modern, secular politics. Graham Hammill challenges this notion in The Mosaic Constitution, arguing that Moses’s constitution of Israel, which created people bound by the rule of law, was central to early modern writings about government and state.

Hammill shows how political writers from Machiavelli to Spinoza drew on Mosaic narrative to imagine constitutional forms of government. At the same time, literary writers like Christopher Marlowe, Michael Drayton, and John Milton turned to Hebrew scripture to probe such fundamental divisions as those between populace and multitude, citizenship and race, and obedience and individual choice. As these writers used biblical narrative to fuse politics with the creative resources of language, Mosaic narrative also gave them a means for exploring divine authority as a product of literary imagination. The first book to place Hebrew scripture at the cutting edge of seventeenth-century literary and political innovation, The Mosaic Constitution offers a fresh perspective on political theology and the relations between literary representation and the founding of political communities.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Graham Hammill is associate professor of English at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. He is the author of Sexuality and Form and coeditor of Political Theology and Early Modernity, both published by the University of Chicago Press.

REVIEWS

“The Mosaic Constitution is an extraordinary work of scholarship—remarkable in its depth and range, remarkable in its implications for the field. The scale and texture of the historical scholarship show the kind of period fluency and scholarly gravitas that will place Graham Hammill squarely in the ranks of the most accomplished of contemporary analysts of the early modern era. This impressive book will be the point of reference for scholars engaged with the history of political theology in the early modern era.”

— Christopher Pye, Williams College

“Through this beautifully realized study of the central role played by the figure of Moses in the work of disparate political thinkers from Machiavelli and Milton to Spinoza and Freud, Graham Hammill uncovers the productive relationship among political theology, early modern constitutionalism, and the creation of the state. The Mosaic Constitution is a major contribution to literary, legal, and political debates about the ongoing entanglement of the sacred and the secular.”

— Anne Orford, University of Melbourne

“Fruitfully investigates links between political philosophy and poetry in the 16th and 17th centuries. . . . Hammill’s crisp, deeply literary recounting of the path of political philosophy will surely benefit advanced students in Renaissance literature.”

— Choice

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations

1. Introduction

Part One: Moses and Political Theology
2. Machiavelli and Hebrew Scripture
3. Spinoza and the Theological Imaginary

Part Two: The Mosaic Constitution in England: Sovereignty, Government, Literature,1590–1630
4. Marlowe and the Counter-Reformation
5. Drayton and the Plague

Part Three: Political Making, Literary Making, 1651–1671
6. Marvell’s Mosaic Moment
7. Harrington’s Poetics of Government
8. Paradise Regained and the Limits of Toleration

Notes
Index

REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE

If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you with an electronic file for alternative access.

Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.

It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.