Blair Hoxby studies the literature and culture of the long seventeenth century. Two of his foremost interests are the commercial culture and the theatrical practices of the period. His book Mammon’s Music: Literature and Economics in the Age of Milton (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002) examines the impact of the commercial revolution on writings of major seventeenth-century poets such as Milton and Dryden. His forthcoming Spectacles of the Gods: Tragedy and Tragic Opera, 1550-1780 argues that the tragedies of this period differ utterly from ancient or modern tragedies and need to be reconsidered on their own terms. Recent articles related to the book include “The Doleful Airs of Euripides: The Origins of Opera and the Spirit of Tragedy Reconsidered,” Cambridge Opera Journal 17 (2005) and “All Passion Spent: The Means and Ends of a Tragédie en Musique,” Comparative Literature (Winter 2007). Hoxby teaches courses on Milton, the Restoration, Shakespeare and his contemporaries, tragedy, and performance theory. His book Mammon’s Music won the Heyman Prize for publication in the humanities, and his essay “Milton’s Steps in Time” won the Monroe Kirk Spears award for the best publication in SEL.

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