Bourgeois heroics: Commercial anxieties and the rise of the mercantile hero in the early modern period

Bourgeois Heroics analyzes the increasing influence of an emergent middle class upon literary production, demonstrating a growing cultural trend away from an heroism associated with moral fortitude and noble birth (embodied in contemporary notions of the "courtier") towards one characterized by responsible economic policy and household management. This cultural shift, I contend, reflects the demands of a bourgeois identity deeply invested in commercial success. My research delves into Tudor economic, religious, and political documents to uncover the ways in which bourgeois insecurities and anxieties about financial and moral failure are displaced onto a series of imaginary threats, such as commodities, women, and institutions that resist the control of the market place. Fusing materialist and psychoanalytic approaches, I argue that these specifically mercantile fears have left their literary traces and given shape to a unique form of heroism, one that in its literary representations reflects back upon the values of the middle class, assuages commercial anxieties, and ultimately validates a bourgeois identity.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Graduate College

Grantor dc:publisher

The University of Arizona.

Year dc:date.issued

2001

Author dc:creator

• Macleod, Alexander Justin O.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Miller, Naomi

• Theater.
• Literature, English.

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10150/279838

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.arizona.edu:10150/279838