Philip Ayres – författare

Shaftesbury's Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times is a collection of treatises on interconnected themes in moral philosophy, aesthetics, literature, and politics. It was immensely influential on eighteenth-century British taste and manners, literature, and thought, and also on the Continental Enlightenment. The author was a Whig, a Stoic, and a theist, whose commitment to political liberty and civic virtue shaped all of his other concerns, from the role of the arts in a free state to the nature of the beautiful and the good. This is the first new edition of Shaftesbury's Characteristicks as a coherent collection for almost a century. A substantial Introduction discusses Shaftesbury's works and ideas in the context of his times, and traces the reception and influence of his writings through the eighteenth century and beyond. A full and scholarly commentary is provided, as well as a complete textual apparatus. The very thorough Index is Shaftesbury's own. The text is essentially that of the first edition of 1711, as marked up with changes by Shaftesbury himself in preparation for the posthumous second edition of 1714; and the striking emblematic engravings he commissioned especially for the second edition are incorporated.

Shaftesbury's Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times is a collection of treatises on interconnected themes in moral philosophy, aesthetics, literature, and politics. It was immensely influential on eighteenth-century British taste and manners, literature, and thought, and also on the Continental Enlightenment. The author was a Whig, a Stoic, and a theist, whose commitment to political liberty and civic virtue shaped all of his other concerns, from the role of the arts in a free state to the nature of the beautiful and the good. This is the first new edition of Shaftesbury's Characteristicks as a coherent collection for almost a century. A substantial Introduction discusses Shaftesbury's works and ideas in the context of his times, and traces the reception and influence of his writings through the eighteenth century and beyond. A full and scholarly commentary is provided, as well as a complete textual apparatus. The very thorough Index is Shaftesbury's own. The text is essentially that of the first edition of 1711, as marked up with changes by Shaftesbury himself in preparation for the posthumous second edition of 1714; and the striking emblematic engravings he commissioned especially for the second edition are incorporated.

A scholarly edition of poems by Shakerley Marmion, Francis Kynaston, John Hall, Sidney Godolphin, Philip Ayres, John Chalkhill, Patrick Carey, William Hammond, and William Bosworth. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

This book looks at the aristocratic adoption of Roman ideals in eighteenth-century English culture and thought. Philip Ayres shows how, in the century following the Revolution of 1688, the ruling class promoted - by way of its patronage - a classical frame of mind embracing all the arts, on the foundations of 'liberty' and 'civic virtue'. The historical fact of a Roman Britain lent an added authenticity to a new 'Roman' present constructed by Lord Burlington and his circle. Ayres's study shows that the propensity to adopt the self-image of virtuous Romans was the attempt of a newly empowered oligarchy to dignify and vindicate itself by association with an idealized image of Republican Rome. This sense of affinity with the ideals of the free Roman Republic gave British classicism an authenticity impossible under the various versions of absolutism on the continent. Its discourse precluded any more thoroughgoing revolution by suggesting that Britain's liberty had been won by an 'oligarchy of virtue', which now defended, defined and emblematized the nation.

This edition of Jonson's great Roman tragedy is more intensively researched than any that has previously appeared. The text is based on extensive collation of the 1605 and 1616 versions and takes the earlier version as "copy-text." The introduction offers a radically new assessment of Jonson's "historiography" and his treatment of sources. It provides an explanation for the charge of treason leveled at Jonson over Sejanus and for which he had to answer to the Privy Council. Explanatory notes to the text provide much new information to facilitate a properly informed reading of the play.