Abstract

The dissertation performs an "archeology" of the concept of "virtue," examining the ways in which it both served and resisted the ideology of eighteenth century England's emergent financial climate. The study performs its critical analysis by examining the figural capacities of "virtue" in selected texts by Plato and the Greek Stoics, using an approach derived from contemporary and feminist "theory". It then applies its findings to the career of "virtue" in the philosophy and economic writings of Locke, in poetry by John Philips and Pope, in periodical writing by Addison, and in the novel Amelia by Fielding. The study concludes that the viability of "virtue" was a function of its figural capacity, which allowed it an ideological capacity at odds with the financial revolution