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Clarendon and the Rhetoric of Historical Form
Clarendon and the Rhetoric of Historical Form is the first major evaluation from a literary point of view of the writings of Edward Hyde, the first Earl of Clarendon and the most important English historiographer of the seventeenth century.
As an early reformer in the Long Parliament, as an adviser to Charles I and Charles II, as the major architect of the Restoration on the Royalist side, and as Lord Chancellor of England from 1660 to 1667, Clarendon played a crucial role in determining the course of English history during and after the tumultuous years of the civil wars. As a historian and a literary stylist, he produced the History of the Rebellion , generally regarded as the greatest historical work written in England during the seventeenth century.
Martine Watson Brownley evaluates Clarendon's literary abilities and achievements, focusing on his prose style, narrative form, and thematic structure on biographical influences on his writing; and on his literary background and associations. She also places Clarendon in the context of the development of English literary historiography during the seventeenth century.
Various political and literary changes—for example, the antiquarian movement, the civil wars, and alterations in English prose and narrative styles—made the seventeenth century a particularly crucial era in the evolution of an English historiography that would lead to historical works which were also classics of literature.
Brownley demonstrates that, through his experiments in style and structure in the History of the Rebellion , and particularly through the imaginative overview which he evolved for and in his work, Clarendon made the most significant advances in English literary historiography before the late eighteenth-century triumvirate of Gibbon, Robertson, and Hume.
Clarendon and the Rhetoric of Historical Form will be valuable to scholars interested in historiography, prose and narrative style, and seventeenth-century literature and history.
As an early reformer in the Long Parliament, as an adviser to Charles I and Charles II, as the major architect of the Restoration on the Royalist side, and as Lord Chancellor of England from 1660 to 1667, Clarendon played a crucial role in determining the course of English history during and after the tumultuous years of the civil wars. As a historian and a literary stylist, he produced the History of the Rebellion , generally regarded as the greatest historical work written in England during the seventeenth century.
Martine Watson Brownley evaluates Clarendon's literary abilities and achievements, focusing on his prose style, narrative form, and thematic structure on biographical influences on his writing; and on his literary background and associations. She also places Clarendon in the context of the development of English literary historiography during the seventeenth century.
Various political and literary changes—for example, the antiquarian movement, the civil wars, and alterations in English prose and narrative styles—made the seventeenth century a particularly crucial era in the evolution of an English historiography that would lead to historical works which were also classics of literature.
Brownley demonstrates that, through his experiments in style and structure in the History of the Rebellion , and particularly through the imaginative overview which he evolved for and in his work, Clarendon made the most significant advances in English literary historiography before the late eighteenth-century triumvirate of Gibbon, Robertson, and Hume.
Clarendon and the Rhetoric of Historical Form will be valuable to scholars interested in historiography, prose and narrative style, and seventeenth-century literature and history.
296 pages, Hardcover
Published September 29, 1985
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January 28, 2025
The Earl of Clarendon's "History of the Rebellion" is one of the first great classics of British history writing. I first became aware of it via JGA Pocock's writing on British historiography in "Barbarism and Religion" and have always been fascinated with the qualities that secured its enduring reputation and its contributions to the development of history writing.
As I'm currently engaged in extended reading on British history in the 17th and 18th centuries, now seemed the appropriate moment to return to those questions. Brownley's book does an excellent job answering them. In this short volume she explains how Clarendon was the first English historian to successively integrate the narration of events with discursive explanation and interpretation of causation and psychology, while furthermore bringing the literary sensibility of deliberate, elevated prose to a genre that under the antiquarians had largely ignored it. As a result, Clarendon decisively contributed to the development of the genre of history writing in its modern form, while producing a masterpiece of empathy and insight into one of the most chaotic periods of British history. In documenting and explaining these qualities of substance and rhetoric, Brownley helps identify the enduring value of historical classics like Clarendon and Gibbon even though their scholarship is far out of date. Their commitment to treating history as a literary art, one almost completely neglected today, produces writing that sheds enduring light and expands our capacity to understand the human condition, not just through scholarly insight but with moral imagination.
With these facts in hand I look forward to tackling Clarendon later this year.
As I'm currently engaged in extended reading on British history in the 17th and 18th centuries, now seemed the appropriate moment to return to those questions. Brownley's book does an excellent job answering them. In this short volume she explains how Clarendon was the first English historian to successively integrate the narration of events with discursive explanation and interpretation of causation and psychology, while furthermore bringing the literary sensibility of deliberate, elevated prose to a genre that under the antiquarians had largely ignored it. As a result, Clarendon decisively contributed to the development of the genre of history writing in its modern form, while producing a masterpiece of empathy and insight into one of the most chaotic periods of British history. In documenting and explaining these qualities of substance and rhetoric, Brownley helps identify the enduring value of historical classics like Clarendon and Gibbon even though their scholarship is far out of date. Their commitment to treating history as a literary art, one almost completely neglected today, produces writing that sheds enduring light and expands our capacity to understand the human condition, not just through scholarly insight but with moral imagination.
With these facts in hand I look forward to tackling Clarendon later this year.
Displaying 1 of 1 review