Literature in Protestant England, 1560-1660 (Routledge Revivals)

Literature in Protestant England, 1560-1660 (Routledge Revivals) PDF

Author: Alan Sinfield

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2009-07-15

Total Pages: 154

ISBN-13: 1135228507

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The hardline, uncompromising theology preached by the English Church in the 16th and 17th Centuries had disturbing effects on the literature of the period. This study, originally published in 1983, assesses the importance of the prevailing religious climate to the work of several major writers, both in and out of sympathy with the contemporary protestantism. It is argued that the accepted view of the period as essentially 'Christian-Humanist' obscures the harsher aspects of a Calvinism which throws into relief the agonies of a writer like Donne, the acceptances of one like George Herbert. Many writers rejected more or less explicitly the Christian dogma, through the heroic assertion of human potential in Shakespearean and other dramatic characters, the nihilism of Marlowe, or the secular rationalism of Bacon and Hobbes. Milton is central to this complex weft of belief and rejection, piety and atheism, acceptance of predestination and determination to accept fate, that characterises the period. Finally, Sinfield shows how this protestantism disintegrated under the strain of internal contradictions and external pressures, and in the process helped to stimulate secularism. In this original and clearly written book, scholarship is deployed unobstrusively to place many major works in an unaccustomed and stimulating perspective.

Literature in Protestant England, 1560-1660 (Routledge Revivals)

Literature in Protestant England, 1560-1660 (Routledge Revivals) PDF

Author: Alan Sinfield

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2009-07-15

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 1135228493

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The hardline, uncompromising theology preached by the English Church in the 16th and 17th Centuries had disturbing effects on the literature of the period. This study, originally published in 1983, assesses the importance of the prevailing religious climate to the work of several major writers, both in and out of sympathy with the contemporary protestantism. It is argued that the accepted view of the period as essentially 'Christian-Humanist' obscures the harsher aspects of a Calvinism which throws into relief the agonies of a writer like Donne, the acceptances of one like George Herbert. Many writers rejected more or less explicitly the Christian dogma, through the heroic assertion of human potential in Shakespearean and other dramatic characters, the nihilism of Marlowe, or the secular rationalism of Bacon and Hobbes. Milton is central to this complex weft of belief and rejection, piety and atheism, acceptance of predestination and determination to accept fate, that characterises the period. Finally, Sinfield shows how this protestantism disintegrated under the strain of internal contradictions and external pressures, and in the process helped to stimulate secularism. In this original and clearly written book, scholarship is deployed unobstrusively to place many major works in an unaccustomed and stimulating perspective.

Hidden Designs (Routledge Revivals)

Hidden Designs (Routledge Revivals) PDF

Author: Jonathan Crewe

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-06-27

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 131767538X

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This 1986 study offers a challenging contribution to the on-going critical debate surrounding the English literary Renaissance. Although informed by the ‘new historicism’ and post-structuralism, Hidden Designs makes a plea for criticism to be practiced in its own name rather than in the name of theory, and opposes the hyper-professionalisation of literary studies in favour of the broader communal functions of criticism. Major Renaissance authors and their recent critics are placed under ‘suspicion’ as Crewe explores the elements of ‘criminality’ inherent in the powerful interests –personal, institutional, political and cultural – served by the literary enterprise, or channelled through it. Revisionary readings of Sidney, Spenser, Puttenham and Shakespeare are linked by a continuing commentary on the history and theoretical claims of Renaissance criticism.

The Subject of Tragedy (Routledge Revivals)

The Subject of Tragedy (Routledge Revivals) PDF

Author: Catherine Belsey

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-06-17

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 1317744446

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First published in 1985, The Subject of Tragedy takes the drama of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as the starting point for an analysis of the differential identities of man and woman. Catherine Belsey charts, in a range of fictional and non-fictional texts, the production in the Renaissance of a meaning for subjectivity that is identifiably modern. The subject of liberal humanism – self-determining, free origin of language, choice and action – is highlighted as the product of a specific period in which man was the subject to which woman was related.

The Reformation Unsettled

The Reformation Unsettled PDF

Author: Jan Frans van Dijkhuizen

Publisher: Brepols Publishers

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13:

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Recent historical studies have emphasized that the English Reformation can no longer be seen as an inevitable response to abuses within the late-medieval Western ('Catholic') Church. Contrary to Protestant stereotypes, the late-medieval Church catered to the spiritual needs of its members. In addition, the English Reformation was an incomplete process and, even after the Elizabethan Settlement of 1559, English religious culture was full of continuities with the past, with pre-Reformation religious culture only partially displaced. This essay collection investigates how the literature of the first century after the Elizabethan Settlement dealt with this cultural ambivalence. Focusing on a mixture of canonical texts and less well-known ones, the contributors show that the religious hybridity of early-modern England is found in a concentrated form in the literary texts of the period. In contrast to theologians, literary writers were not obliged to choose sides. Literary discourse could confront incompatible doctrinal perspectives within a single text, or forge a hybrid spiritual sensibility out of the competing religious traditions. Literature, sometimes in spite of writers' avowed denominational allegiances, embraced, explored and deepened the ambivalence of early modern English religious culture in a manner unavailable in other kinds of texts.

Scottish Puritanism, 1590-1638

Scottish Puritanism, 1590-1638 PDF

Author: David George Mullan

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 0198269978

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Scottish Puritanism, 1590-1638, is a portrait of Protestantism in the two generations leading to the National Covenant of 1638. This book investigates the construction of a puritan community embracing 'godly' ministers along with significant numbers of lay men and women willing to engage in the practice of a piety which confronted the inner person and the external world, seeking the reformation of both. Topics include attitudes towards the Bible and the sacraments, the nature of the Christian life, the place of the feminine in Scottish divinity, and the development of ideas about predestination, covenanting, and the relationship between church and state. The book addresses the tensions inherent in puritanism, such as those associated with the nature of the church and the extent of freedom, and provides a perspective on the relationship between Scottish and English religious developments.

Catholic Reformation in Protestant Britain

Catholic Reformation in Protestant Britain PDF

Author: Alexandra Walsham

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-15

Total Pages: 530

ISBN-13: 1317169239

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The survival and revival of Roman Catholicism in post-Reformation Britain remains the subject of lively debate. This volume examines key aspects of the evolution and experience of the Catholic communities of these Protestant kingdoms during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Rejecting an earlier preoccupation with recusants and martyrs, it highlights the importance of those who exhibited varying degrees of conformity with the ecclesiastical establishment and explores the moral and political dilemmas that confronted the clergy and laity. It reassesses the significance of the Counter Reformation mission as an evangelical enterprise; analyses its communication strategies and its impact on popular piety; and illuminates how Catholic ritual life creatively adapted itself to a climate of repression. Reacting sharply against the insularity of many previous accounts, this book investigates developments in the British Isles in relation to wider international initiatives for the renewal of the Catholic faith in Europe and for its plantation overseas. It emphasises the reciprocal interaction between Catholicism and anti-Catholicism throughout the period and casts fresh light on the nature of interconfessional relations in a pluralistic society. It argues that persecution and suffering paradoxically both constrained and facilitated the resurgence of the Church of Rome. They presented challenges and fostered internal frictions, but they also catalysed the process of religious identity formation and imbued English, Welsh and Scottish Catholicism with peculiar dynamism. Prefaced by an extensive new historiographical overview, this collection brings together a selection of Alexandra Walsham's essays written over the last fifteen years, fully revised and updated to reflect recent research in this flourishing field. Collectively these make a major contribution to our understanding of minority Catholicism and the Counter Reformation in the era after the Council of Trent.

A Protestant Purgatory

A Protestant Purgatory PDF

Author: Laurie Throness

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-12-05

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1351961993

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How did the penitentiary get its name? Why did the English impose long prison sentences? Did class and economic conflict really lie at the heart of their correctional system? In a groundbreaking study that challenges the assumptions of modern criminal justice scholarship, Laurie Throness answers many questions like these by exposing the deep theological roots of the judicial institutions of eighteenth-century Britain. The book offers a scholarly account of the passage of the Penitentiary Act of 1779, combining meticulous attention to detail with a sweeping theological overview of the century prior to the Act. But it is not just an intellectual history. It tells a fascinating story of a broader religious movement, and the people and beliefs that motivated them to create a new institution. The work is original because it relies so completely on original sources. It is mystical because it mingles heavenly with earthly justice. It is authoritative because of its explanatory power. Its anecdotes and insights, poetry and song, provide intriguing glimpses into another era strangely familiar to our own. Of special interest to social and legal historians, criminologists, and theologians, this work will also appeal to a wider audience of those who are interested in Christianity's impact on Western culture and institutions.

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