2007 Summer School: The Stuarts and the English Revolution

Anglo-American political traditions, both liberal and conservative, were forged in the revolutionary struggles of the 17th century.  Understanding American history, including our own Revolution and Civil War, is impossible without an understanding of the influential political thinkers this age produced: Hobbes, Filmer, and Locke.  And for all the strife and horror of the times, English letters flowered in the works of such men as Defoe, Dryden, Marvell, and Milton.  The works of Jeremy Taylor and others made this the last period when English was an important language of theology, but the age also saw the rise of the most lunatic sectarians: Levellers, Diggers, Ranters, and Fifth Monarchists—nutballs who make Pat Robertson seem as wise as Newman.

Faculty

• Thomas Fleming (bio)
• James Patrick (bio)
• Fr. Hugh Barbour, O.Praem. (bio)
• Donald Livingston
• Christopher Check
• Scott P. Richert
• Aaron D. Wolf

Reading List

• John Milton, Paradise Lost
• John Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, Religio Laici
• Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England (selections)
• Richard Crashaw (selected poems)
• Henry Vaughan (selected poems)
• John Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government
• Robert Filmer, Patriarcha
• David Hume, History of England (Volume 6)
• John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress
• Andrew Marvell, Horatian Ode Upon Cromwell’s Return From Ireland
• Lionel Johnson, “By the Statue of King Charles at Charing Cross”

Location

Lectures

• The Rockford Institute
  928 N. Main St.
  Rockford, IL 61103