The Poetics of Primitive Accumulation: English Renaissance Culture and the Genealogy of Capital

by Richard Halpern

Book by Halpern, Richard

Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Kevin Fitzpatrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Words and phrases like "brilliant," "ground-breaking," and "ingenious" are often bandied about with a liberality that debases the self-same qualities that they seek to illustrate. Such is the nature of literature-centered discourse here in the early 21st Century. However, in the case of Richard Halpern's "The Poetics of Primitive Accumulation: English Renaissance Culture and the Genealogy of Capital," published in 1991, such words would be down right appropriate and called for, especially for the final chapter of the book, where the author explicates, with grace and aplomb, William Shakespeare's "King Lear." But the book is not just distinguished by its ultimate chapter, for both parts of the book, Part I, which peruses the development of rhetoric and style as a symptom of economic change, and Part II, which critiques individual author's and works from the era concerned, are intriguing due to their unique and penetrating analysis and because of their ability to connect 'everyday' readers like myself, to works from an epoch not known to most. Particularly memorable is Part II, where authors and works such as John Skelton's Ornithological poem "Phyllyp Sparowe," Thomas More's "Utopia." and Spenser's "The Shephearedes Calender" are discussed amidst the foreground of the transition from feudalism to the era of "Primitive (capitalist) Accumulation" associated with Absolutism; this particular interpretation is supplemented well in Part I, where the effects of the enclosure movement, and its associated rise in "vagabondage" in Tudor England, become clearly linked in the mind of the reader with the works of these classic authors. And, finally, of course, there is that gem of an chapter on "King Lear," which turns the head on reductionist Marxist interpretations of the play by revealing the "fall" into feudalism, rather than the assertion of a rise into capitalism, that is actually at the heart of Shakespeare's classic. The last chapter by itself is worth the price of admission for this book, a tome which is as innovative and well-written as any similar academic book, while at the same time offering insights few can claim. A must read this is!