Enthusiast in the English Intellectual Discourse of the Early Modern Period. Review of: Miller, W. C. (2023). The Enthusiast. Anatomy of the Fanatic in Seventeenth-Century British Culture. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 258 p.
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: W. C. Miller’s book analyses the original rhetorical strategy of English intellectuals. By studying the texts of H. More, J. Locke, A. A. Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, J. Swift and their contemporaries, Miller identifies a common literary device based on the figure of the Enthusiast. Uncovering the meanings and implications of enthusiasm in the context of historical events in early modern England, Miller identifies three reasons for the Enthusiast’s popularity as an independent literary image. The result of Miller's study is the reconstruction of a series of transformations that led to a change in the connotation of the words ‘enthusiasm’ and ‘enthusiast’ from negative to positive. The problem of the semantic ‘drift’ of the concept of ‘enthusiasm’, which is extremely relevant in the English discursive tradition of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, is not typical of the Russian literary tradition. Therefore, the task of comprehending the historical variability of English enthusiasm for the Russian reader is of special cultural interest.
Author: Yulia S. Shipitsyna
Institution: Ural Federal University
Language: English
Subfield: Classics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4411353022