Blaine Greteman

Renaissance and 17th Century England

I am fascinated by moments when writers attempt to think past the defining paradigms of their age – moments of genuine innovation that are nonetheless bounded by the material and ideological conditions of a given culture.  Accordingly, my research and teaching examines the seventeenth century as an era of poetic, political, and scientific upheaval. My current book project, Problem Children: Youth and Authority in Early Modern England, explores one of the period’s most striking innovations – the emergence of arguments for consent as the basis of obligation.  Focusing on poetic and political invocations of childhood, and drawing on both canonical writers like Milton and less familiar archival material from London and Oxford, the project attempts to understand how voice can emerge from a condition of voiceless infancy. 

Before beginning this project I was a political analyst and London-based writer for TIME magazine.  In addition to recent scholarly articles in journals like ELH and Renaissance Quarterly I continue to write regular essays and nonfiction for Ode magazine.