The economics of theories of rhetorical production: Erasmus, Calvin, and Milton

In this dissertation, I demonstrate that Erasmus, Calvin, and Milton view the processes of writing and attaining salvation as analogous and that how they define these processes is linked to their vision of nascent capitalism. While Erasmus and Calvin view the emerging capitalist economy with ambivalence, Milton, like seventeenth century political philosophers Hobbes and Locke, is wholly embedded in a capitalist economy and endorses what C. B. Macpherson has termed “possessive individualism.” These three thinkers reflect the shift from a mixed economy to a purely capitalist one. Calvin and Erasmus imagine the sacred as the site of community whereas for Milton, the sacred is private. Erasmus founds his rhetorical system on his belief that human beings labor collectively for truth and salvation, and that the only real wealth is commonwealth. Consequently, his stylistic preferences tend toward expenditure. In contrast, Calvin sees salvation as a labor pure gift from God, found not in the public sphere, but in the private believer\u27s relationship with God. Calvin values the rare, and consequently endorses stylistic frugality. In spite of privileging of the private, Calvin would impose the consequences of private truth upon an entire society. While Milton more closely approximates a Calvinist vision of writing and salvation than an Erasmian one, labor re-enters the processes of writing and attaining salvation. Erasmus\u27 common labor, however, is replaced by the private labor of the solitary writer and the isolated believer. Only those who own the means of production have the authority to pursue writing and the development of theology. All others, who play no role in the public, must echo the master of the house. The public becomes the space out of which the private is shaped; each man forges a self and a theology from the public battleground