English Newsbooks, Storytelling and Political Criticism

Mercurius Aulicus and the Solemn League and Covenant, September–October 1643

Bibliographic Data

ID12604286
AuthorsGary Rivett (University of Sheffield, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume19
Issue1
Pages3-16
Publication date2012-12-19
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueMedia History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1368-8804 • E-ISSN: 1469-9729
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13688804.2012.752965
OpenAlexW1583509849
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited27

The question of how newsbook storytelling contributed to the cultivation and development of thinking about particular political practices during the English Civil Wars in the 1640s needs systematic attention. A sustained examination of newsbook narratives reveals assumptions about political order, activity and legitimacy that were being continuously reiterated in public discourse. Examining how the author of the Royalist Mercurius Aulicus chronicled, selected and ordered recent events into a series of narrative episodes across a number of issues, this article offers a preliminary approach towards understanding how newsbooks contributed to everyday political thinking. Using Charles Taylor's notion of ‘social imaginaries’, it outlines the ideas and assumptions that constituted Aulicus' discussion of the Solemn League and Covenant's introduction in September and October 1643. As an important form of political engagement, the stories newsbooks told were used to shape ideas about political propriety on a weekly basis

Aesthetics · Art · Covenant · Criticism · Legitimacy · Literature · Media studies · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Royalist · Sociology · Storytelling · Historical Influence and Diplomacy · Historical Studies of British Isles · History · Law · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity

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