Imagination and politics in seventeenth-century England

"Todd Butler here proposes a new epistemology of early modern politics, one that sees - as did writers of the period - human thought as a precursor to political action. By focusing not on reason or the will but on the imagination, Butler uncovers a political culture in seventeenth-century England that is far more shifting and multi-polar than has been previously recognized. Pursuing the connection between individual thought and corporate political action, he also charts the existence of a discourse that grounds modern scholarly interests in the representational nature of early modern politics - its images, rituals and entertainment - within a language early moderns themselves used."--Jacket.