Reading Genesis in the Long Eighteenth Century: From Milton to Mary Shelley

Reassessing the long-accepted division between religion and enlightenment, Ana Acosta here traces a tissue of readings and adaptations of Genesis and Scriptural language from Milton through Rousseau to Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley. Acosta's interdisciplinary approach places these writers in the broader context of eighteenth-century political theory, biblical criticism, religious studies and utopianism. Establishing the relationship between biblical criticism and republican utopias, Acosta shows that important utopian visions are better understood against the background of Genesis interpretation.