Security, Fiscal Policy, and Sovereignty in Renaissance English Literature

David Glimp reveals how Renaissance England's growing tax system fundamentally reshaped its literature, influencing works by Shakespeare, Milton, Herbert, Marlowe, and More, among others. Foregrounding struggles over fiscal policy, he brings into striking relief how Renaissance authors sought to reimagine collective security and political life.

Taxation was a central challenge for England's rulers during the Renaissance, and consequently became a major theme for some of the period's greatest writers. Through close readings of works by Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, George Herbert, and John Milton, David Glimp reveals how these writers and others grappled with the period's expanding systems of taxation and changing understandings of collective security. Such debates involved questions of political obligation, what it meant to be safe, and the nature of political community itself. Challenging dominant understandings of Renaissance sovereignty, Glimp explores in greater detail than ever before how early modern authors thought about and engaged the fiscal realities of government. From Utopia to Paradise Lost, his groundbreaking analysis illuminates how Renaissance literature addressed concerns about fiscal policy, state power, and collective wellbeing and will appeal to scholars of Renaissance literature, political theory, and economic history alike.