1st Edition
Human Insufficiency Natural Slavery and the Racialization of Vulnerability in Early Modern England
By Jeffrey B. Griswold
Copyright 2023
172 Pages
by
Routledge
172 Pages
by
Routledge
172 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
Human Insufficiency argues that early modern writers depict the human political subject as physically vulnerable in order to naturalize slavery. Representations of Man as a weak creature—“poor” and “bare” in King Lear’s words—strategically portrayed English bodies as needing care from people who were imagined to be less fragile. Drawing on Aristotle’s depictions of the natural master and the... Read more
Preface
Introduction
- Frail Humanity in King Lear and Early Modern Aristotelian Political Thought
2. Human Vulnerability and Natural Slavery in The Faerie Queene
3. Servitude and Human Negative Exceptionalism in Montaigne, La Boétie, and The Duchess of Malfi
4. Unnatural Slavery and the Protection of White Women in Cavendish’s Assaulted and Pursued Chastity
5. Coda: Materializing Race and Salvaging Vulnerability in Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy
Bibliography
Index
Biography
Jeffrey B. Griswold is a scholar of early modern literature and political philosophy. His work has been published in Exemplaria, Studies in Philology, Renaissance Drama, Spenser Studies, The Spenser Review, and Critical Survey.
