Liquid Enclosure: Water, Waste, and Property in the Literature of the Long Restoration (1650-1728)

Critics often cite John Locke's apple to explain his vision of the transformation of commons into private property, but commentary on his fountains and rivers remains absent. Examined closely, Locke's text reveals that by engaging with fluid figures for property, he evokes and fails to reconcile a revolutionary counter-model for common property that makes impossible his own. This dissertation's first premise is that our commons are too dry. As Michel Serres reminds us, bodies of water resist unity and stability as objects. This extends into the realm of property where its amorphousness baffles the case for private, divisible, self-contained property. English thinkers knew this. This dissertation argues that from Gerrard Winstanley onward, fluvial figures represent the power of the liquid commons as both an object of capitalization and a utopic other to private property. Writers during the transition to capitalism did not forget the commons; yet this much-used trope somehow became invisible to us, and it is the work of this dissertation to restore its place in early modern metaphors of property.

Grantor dc:publisher

State University of New York at Buffalo

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Hall, Joseph

Contributors dc:contributor

• Mack, Ruth
• English

• literature
• environmental philosophy

Statement dc:rights

• Users of works found in University at Buffalo Institutional Repository (UBIR) are responsible for identifying and contacting the copyright owner for permission to reuse. University at Buffalo Libraries do not manage rights for copyright-protected works and cannot assist with permissions.
• Copyright retained by author.

Language dc:language

eng

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10477/77952

OAI record oai:identifier

https://ubir.buffalo.edu/oai/request?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=qdc&identifier=oai%3Aubir.buffalo.edu%3A10477%2F77952