Thomas N. Corns
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198128830
- eISBN:
- 9780191671715
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198128830.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This book studies the relationship between literature and the political crises of the English Civil War. It explores the ways in which the literary culture of the period changed and survived in ...
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This book studies the relationship between literature and the political crises of the English Civil War. It explores the ways in which the literary culture of the period changed and survived in radically shifting circumstances and conditions of extreme adversity, and examines the ways in which old forms developed and new forms emerged to articulate new ideologies and to respond to triumphs and disasters. Included in the book's discussion of a wide range of authors and texts are examinations of the Cavalier love poetry of Herrick and Lovelace, Herrick's religious verse, the polemical strategies of Eikon Basilike, and the complexities of Cowley's political verse. The book also provides an important new account of Marvell's political instability, while the prose of Lilburne, Winstanley, and the Ranters is the subject of a long and sustained account which focuses on their sometimes exhilarating attempts to find an idiom for ideologies which previously had been unexpressed in English political life. Through the whole study runs a detailed engagement with Milton's political prose, and the book ends with a consideration of the impact of the Civil War and related events on the English literary tradition, specifically on Rochester, Bunyan, and the later writing of Milton.Less
This book studies the relationship between literature and the political crises of the English Civil War. It explores the ways in which the literary culture of the period changed and survived in radically shifting circumstances and conditions of extreme adversity, and examines the ways in which old forms developed and new forms emerged to articulate new ideologies and to respond to triumphs and disasters. Included in the book's discussion of a wide range of authors and texts are examinations of the Cavalier love poetry of Herrick and Lovelace, Herrick's religious verse, the polemical strategies of Eikon Basilike, and the complexities of Cowley's political verse. The book also provides an important new account of Marvell's political instability, while the prose of Lilburne, Winstanley, and the Ranters is the subject of a long and sustained account which focuses on their sometimes exhilarating attempts to find an idiom for ideologies which previously had been unexpressed in English political life. Through the whole study runs a detailed engagement with Milton's political prose, and the book ends with a consideration of the impact of the Civil War and related events on the English literary tradition, specifically on Rochester, Bunyan, and the later writing of Milton.
Rivkah Zim
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691161808
- eISBN:
- 9781400852093
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691161808.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to explore the similar forms, themes, and functions that tend to recur in the prison writing of European intellectuals. The book ...
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This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to explore the similar forms, themes, and functions that tend to recur in the prison writing of European intellectuals. The book juxtaposes different pairs of writers across national and period boundaries, from late antiquity to the late twentieth century. Although the experience of different centuries and regimes varies greatly and there is no single category of space implied—all the subjects of this book suffered involuntary confinement in different conditions—being a prisoner or captive in any period means being cut off and kept apart from the continuities of normal life, however that was defined. Many of these prisoners remain well known—Boethius, Thomas More, John Bunyan, Marie-Jeanne Roland, Oscar Wilde, Antonio Gramsci, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Anne Frank, and Primo Levi. Yet their different kinds of writing in captivity have never been read alongside each other so closely and extensively as specific responses to their various kinds of imprisonment.Less
This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to explore the similar forms, themes, and functions that tend to recur in the prison writing of European intellectuals. The book juxtaposes different pairs of writers across national and period boundaries, from late antiquity to the late twentieth century. Although the experience of different centuries and regimes varies greatly and there is no single category of space implied—all the subjects of this book suffered involuntary confinement in different conditions—being a prisoner or captive in any period means being cut off and kept apart from the continuities of normal life, however that was defined. Many of these prisoners remain well known—Boethius, Thomas More, John Bunyan, Marie-Jeanne Roland, Oscar Wilde, Antonio Gramsci, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Anne Frank, and Primo Levi. Yet their different kinds of writing in captivity have never been read alongside each other so closely and extensively as specific responses to their various kinds of imprisonment.
Rivkah Zim
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691161808
- eISBN:
- 9781400852093
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691161808.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter presents a reading of John Bunyan's Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666) and Oscar Wilde's De Profundis (1897). In both texts, the recording consciousness of a prisoner ...
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This chapter presents a reading of John Bunyan's Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666) and Oscar Wilde's De Profundis (1897). In both texts, the recording consciousness of a prisoner explains the reasons for his imprisonment; the narrative is therefore restricted to events and interactions that changed the author's past life and created his literary persona's new responses to them: self-knowledge. The protagonist of each narrative is thus a doubly displaced persona—not only a literary construct but also a shadow from the past—and no longer a separate consciousness except insofar as this is represented by the converted prison writer's quotations of his reprobate self's speech or thoughts. The memorial testimony of the prisoner connotes the experiences of his narrative's shadowy protagonist but specifies different perceptions of these experiences. In this way, each prisoner offers his recollections of personal memories as expert interpretations of historic actions, and description or analysis is coupled with dramatic dialogue.Less
This chapter presents a reading of John Bunyan's Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666) and Oscar Wilde's De Profundis (1897). In both texts, the recording consciousness of a prisoner explains the reasons for his imprisonment; the narrative is therefore restricted to events and interactions that changed the author's past life and created his literary persona's new responses to them: self-knowledge. The protagonist of each narrative is thus a doubly displaced persona—not only a literary construct but also a shadow from the past—and no longer a separate consciousness except insofar as this is represented by the converted prison writer's quotations of his reprobate self's speech or thoughts. The memorial testimony of the prisoner connotes the experiences of his narrative's shadowy protagonist but specifies different perceptions of these experiences. In this way, each prisoner offers his recollections of personal memories as expert interpretations of historic actions, and description or analysis is coupled with dramatic dialogue.
David Manning
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195182392
- eISBN:
- 9780199851485
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195182392.003.0090
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
The libretto of this Morality is a free adaptation of John Bunyan's allegory. The text is chiefly from Bunyan, with additions from the Psalms and other parts of the Bible. The words of Lord Lechery's ...
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The libretto of this Morality is a free adaptation of John Bunyan's allegory. The text is chiefly from Bunyan, with additions from the Psalms and other parts of the Bible. The words of Lord Lechery's song in Act Three are by Ursula Wood. For stage purposes a good deal of adaptation and simplification of the original has been necessary: thus, The Pilgrim's Progress's early domestic happiness has been omitted; his two companions, Faithful and Hopeful, do not appear; there are only three Shepherds; and Mr By-Ends has been provided with a wife. For this purpose the libretto has utilized the escape, described later, from Doubting Castle. Incidentally, the name Pilgrim is used throughout the libretto as being of more universal significance than Bunyan's title.Less
The libretto of this Morality is a free adaptation of John Bunyan's allegory. The text is chiefly from Bunyan, with additions from the Psalms and other parts of the Bible. The words of Lord Lechery's song in Act Three are by Ursula Wood. For stage purposes a good deal of adaptation and simplification of the original has been necessary: thus, The Pilgrim's Progress's early domestic happiness has been omitted; his two companions, Faithful and Hopeful, do not appear; there are only three Shepherds; and Mr By-Ends has been provided with a wife. For this purpose the libretto has utilized the escape, described later, from Doubting Castle. Incidentally, the name Pilgrim is used throughout the libretto as being of more universal significance than Bunyan's title.
Michael Davies
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- April 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780199242405
- eISBN:
- 9780191602405
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199242402.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Bunyan’s theology is not obsessed with a forbidding Calvinist doctrine of predestination. Rather, his is a comfortable doctrine, in which the believer is encouraged to accept salvation through the ...
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Bunyan’s theology is not obsessed with a forbidding Calvinist doctrine of predestination. Rather, his is a comfortable doctrine, in which the believer is encouraged to accept salvation through the more accommodating terms of Bunyan’s covenant theology. Bunyan’s narrative style is informed by this doctrine, and his major works (with particular focus on Grace Abounding and The Pilgrim’s Progress) reveal a profound sensitivity to narrative and reading practices, with reading itself instrumental to spiritual instruction. The ‘graceful reading’ of the book’s title thus encompasses a Bunyan for whom grace rather than predestination is most important, as well as a Bunyan whose narrative style tests the reader by presenting narratives that must be read for something other than ‘story’ alone. As commentators tend to divorce the ‘literary’ aspects of Bunyan’s works from their Calvinism, this book suggests a more constructive way of reading his narrative and doctrinal writings, by integrating literary interpretation with their theology and by viewing them in the context of late seventeenth-century Nonconformist culture, as well as against the narrative strategies of postmodernist fiction.Less
Bunyan’s theology is not obsessed with a forbidding Calvinist doctrine of predestination. Rather, his is a comfortable doctrine, in which the believer is encouraged to accept salvation through the more accommodating terms of Bunyan’s covenant theology. Bunyan’s narrative style is informed by this doctrine, and his major works (with particular focus on Grace Abounding and The Pilgrim’s Progress) reveal a profound sensitivity to narrative and reading practices, with reading itself instrumental to spiritual instruction. The ‘graceful reading’ of the book’s title thus encompasses a Bunyan for whom grace rather than predestination is most important, as well as a Bunyan whose narrative style tests the reader by presenting narratives that must be read for something other than ‘story’ alone. As commentators tend to divorce the ‘literary’ aspects of Bunyan’s works from their Calvinism, this book suggests a more constructive way of reading his narrative and doctrinal writings, by integrating literary interpretation with their theology and by viewing them in the context of late seventeenth-century Nonconformist culture, as well as against the narrative strategies of postmodernist fiction.
J. R. Watson
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198270027
- eISBN:
- 9780191600784
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019827002X.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature
The continuity of the metrical psalm tradition in writers such as William Barton and Francis Rous is reviewed. The metrical psalms of John Milton, the beginnings of hymn singing under the Baptist ...
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The continuity of the metrical psalm tradition in writers such as William Barton and Francis Rous is reviewed. The metrical psalms of John Milton, the beginnings of hymn singing under the Baptist Benjamin Keach, the poems of Richard Baxter and John Bunyan, and the hymns of Joseph Stennett are also discussed.Less
The continuity of the metrical psalm tradition in writers such as William Barton and Francis Rous is reviewed. The metrical psalms of John Milton, the beginnings of hymn singing under the Baptist Benjamin Keach, the poems of Richard Baxter and John Bunyan, and the hymns of Joseph Stennett are also discussed.
Michael Davies
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- April 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780199242405
- eISBN:
- 9780191602405
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199242402.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Highlights the critical approach taken in ‘graceful reading’, in revising our understanding of Bunyan’s Calvinist theology and in pursuing a reader-response approach to his writings, especially in ...
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Highlights the critical approach taken in ‘graceful reading’, in revising our understanding of Bunyan’s Calvinist theology and in pursuing a reader-response approach to his writings, especially in relation to Stanley Fish’s work. The study also identifies similarities between postmodernist fictive strategies, as discussed by Brian McHale and Bunyan’s narrative style.Less
Highlights the critical approach taken in ‘graceful reading’, in revising our understanding of Bunyan’s Calvinist theology and in pursuing a reader-response approach to his writings, especially in relation to Stanley Fish’s work. The study also identifies similarities between postmodernist fictive strategies, as discussed by Brian McHale and Bunyan’s narrative style.
Kathleen Lynch
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199643936
- eISBN:
- 9780191738876
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199643936.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
Autobiographical narrative is seldom viewed as a catalyst for the social and political upheavals of mid‐seventeenth#x2010;century England and its colonies. This book argues that it should be. ...
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Autobiographical narrative is seldom viewed as a catalyst for the social and political upheavals of mid‐seventeenth#x2010;century England and its colonies. This book argues that it should be. Focusing on the inward search for signs of election as a powerful stimulus for new, written forms of self‐identification, this study directs critical attention toward the collective processes through which ‘truthful’ texts of spiritual experience were constructed, validated, and endorsed. This new analysis of the rhetoric of authentic selfhood emphasizes the ways in which personal accounts of religious awakening became another opportunity to conceptualize experience as an authorizing principle. A broad spectrum of Protestant life‐writing is explored from Augustine's Confessions first translated into English in 1620 through John Bunyan's Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666) and Richard Baxter's Reliquiae Baxterianae (1696). The forms in which these landmark texts were circulated in the book trade and the agendas those circulations served are examined in such a way as to put canonical texts back into conversation with the outpouring of individual life‐writings that date from the middle of the seventeenth century on. This book contributes to the reintegration of the scholarly fields of literature, religion, and politics. It revitalizes the study of proto-literary forms which while devotional in nature were deeply political in their consequences contributing as they did to the emerging discourse of personal liberties.Less
Autobiographical narrative is seldom viewed as a catalyst for the social and political upheavals of mid‐seventeenth#x2010;century England and its colonies. This book argues that it should be. Focusing on the inward search for signs of election as a powerful stimulus for new, written forms of self‐identification, this study directs critical attention toward the collective processes through which ‘truthful’ texts of spiritual experience were constructed, validated, and endorsed. This new analysis of the rhetoric of authentic selfhood emphasizes the ways in which personal accounts of religious awakening became another opportunity to conceptualize experience as an authorizing principle. A broad spectrum of Protestant life‐writing is explored from Augustine's Confessions first translated into English in 1620 through John Bunyan's Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666) and Richard Baxter's Reliquiae Baxterianae (1696). The forms in which these landmark texts were circulated in the book trade and the agendas those circulations served are examined in such a way as to put canonical texts back into conversation with the outpouring of individual life‐writings that date from the middle of the seventeenth century on. This book contributes to the reintegration of the scholarly fields of literature, religion, and politics. It revitalizes the study of proto-literary forms which while devotional in nature were deeply political in their consequences contributing as they did to the emerging discourse of personal liberties.
Kathleen Lynch
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199643936
- eISBN:
- 9780191738876
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199643936.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
Though John Bunyan maintained a critical distance from what he took to be a conventionalized story form, his Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners became the paradigmatic Protestant conversion ...
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Though John Bunyan maintained a critical distance from what he took to be a conventionalized story form, his Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners became the paradigmatic Protestant conversion narrative. Further, its deep epistemological uncertainty gives it an important place in the history of differentiation between human and divine authorities. But Grace Abounding is seldom studied for an understanding of the relations between individual and communal identities. This chapter studies Bunyan as a member of a specific community in formation and under duress. With John Gifford, the chapter illustrates the communal investments in an exemplary life. With Agnes Beaumont and John Child, it details the prices exacted for deviations from that model. With the bookseller Francis Smith, it examines arguments for the liberty of conscience and resistance to the Clarendon Code.Less
Though John Bunyan maintained a critical distance from what he took to be a conventionalized story form, his Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners became the paradigmatic Protestant conversion narrative. Further, its deep epistemological uncertainty gives it an important place in the history of differentiation between human and divine authorities. But Grace Abounding is seldom studied for an understanding of the relations between individual and communal identities. This chapter studies Bunyan as a member of a specific community in formation and under duress. With John Gifford, the chapter illustrates the communal investments in an exemplary life. With Agnes Beaumont and John Child, it details the prices exacted for deviations from that model. With the bookseller Francis Smith, it examines arguments for the liberty of conscience and resistance to the Clarendon Code.
Achsah Guibbory
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199557165
- eISBN:
- 9780191595004
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199557165.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter shows what happened to the analogy between England and Israel after the Restoration. Cowley and others greeted Charles II as David and invoked the idea of Israel's redemption. The Church ...
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This chapter shows what happened to the analogy between England and Israel after the Restoration. Cowley and others greeted Charles II as David and invoked the idea of Israel's redemption. The Church of England was reconstructed, symbol of unity in English Israel. But the reestablished Church was an instrument of division in the nation, persecuting nonconformists like Bunyan and the Quakers, who insisted that the persecuted people of God were the true Israel. Milton and Dryden represent alternative attitudes toward a nation claiming to be Israel. Suggestive of the complex English attitudes toward Jews, Milton as Hebraic prophet demonized nation–building, detaching Israel from the English nation and from Jewish Israel in his Restoration poems. Dryden, England's poet laureate, appropriated Isaiah's prophecies for England and used the biblical Absalom's rebellion to reaffirm Charles II's Davidic authority and the Israelite status of the nation. Some of the material on Milton here appeared in an earlier form in ‘England, Israel, and the Jews in Milton's prose, 1649–1660,’ in Milton and the Jews, ed. Douglas A. Brooks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 13-34; and ‘“The Jewish Question” and “the Woman Question” in Samson Agonistes: Gender, Religion, and Nation,’ in Milton and Gender, ed. Catherine Gimelli Martin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 184-203, both reprinted by permission of Cambridge University Press.Less
This chapter shows what happened to the analogy between England and Israel after the Restoration. Cowley and others greeted Charles II as David and invoked the idea of Israel's redemption. The Church of England was reconstructed, symbol of unity in English Israel. But the reestablished Church was an instrument of division in the nation, persecuting nonconformists like Bunyan and the Quakers, who insisted that the persecuted people of God were the true Israel. Milton and Dryden represent alternative attitudes toward a nation claiming to be Israel. Suggestive of the complex English attitudes toward Jews, Milton as Hebraic prophet demonized nation–building, detaching Israel from the English nation and from Jewish Israel in his Restoration poems. Dryden, England's poet laureate, appropriated Isaiah's prophecies for England and used the biblical Absalom's rebellion to reaffirm Charles II's Davidic authority and the Israelite status of the nation. Some of the material on Milton here appeared in an earlier form in ‘England, Israel, and the Jews in Milton's prose, 1649–1660,’ in Milton and the Jews, ed. Douglas A. Brooks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 13-34; and ‘“The Jewish Question” and “the Woman Question” in Samson Agonistes: Gender, Religion, and Nation,’ in Milton and Gender, ed. Catherine Gimelli Martin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 184-203, both reprinted by permission of Cambridge University Press.
Helen Cooper
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199248865
- eISBN:
- 9780191719394
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199248865.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
In the Middle Ages, the structural organization of a narrative in terms of a journey took two forms — romance quest and spiritual pilgrimage — that became increasingly hard to separate. The exemplary ...
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In the Middle Ages, the structural organization of a narrative in terms of a journey took two forms — romance quest and spiritual pilgrimage — that became increasingly hard to separate. The exemplary power of the quest and its formulation of a desire to challenge the unknown helped to inspire the exploration of the New World. It flourished even after the Reformation in allegorical and Calvinist renderings (including Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress). The chapter also studies the landscapes of desire and fear in quest romances, and their structure: a return journey opens up possibilities for symmetrical patterning, in which the second half comments on the first. A one-way journey is likely to lead to death, with God providing the key to narrative meaning.Less
In the Middle Ages, the structural organization of a narrative in terms of a journey took two forms — romance quest and spiritual pilgrimage — that became increasingly hard to separate. The exemplary power of the quest and its formulation of a desire to challenge the unknown helped to inspire the exploration of the New World. It flourished even after the Reformation in allegorical and Calvinist renderings (including Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress). The chapter also studies the landscapes of desire and fear in quest romances, and their structure: a return journey opens up possibilities for symmetrical patterning, in which the second half comments on the first. A one-way journey is likely to lead to death, with God providing the key to narrative meaning.
Vincent L. Wimbush
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199873579
- eISBN:
- 9780199949595
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199873579.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Chapter 2 begins to establish the argument about white men and their magic. It focuses on Equiano’s beginning effort to figure himself as “stranger” or outsider who looks at the white dominant world ...
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Chapter 2 begins to establish the argument about white men and their magic. It focuses on Equiano’s beginning effort to figure himself as “stranger” or outsider who looks at the white dominant world and offers his readers new critical and startling insights into it, including magic as its foundation and framing logic.Less
Chapter 2 begins to establish the argument about white men and their magic. It focuses on Equiano’s beginning effort to figure himself as “stranger” or outsider who looks at the white dominant world and offers his readers new critical and startling insights into it, including magic as its foundation and framing logic.
John Cannon
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198204527
- eISBN:
- 9780191676321
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198204527.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Political History
The Glorious Revolution, which established the political context for Johnson's life, was a revolution in both Church and State. Since the restoration of Charles II, when the Church of England was ...
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The Glorious Revolution, which established the political context for Johnson's life, was a revolution in both Church and State. Since the restoration of Charles II, when the Church of England was re-established and its bishops reinstated, dissenters had suffered a number of serious disabilities. The most famous of Protestant dissenters, John Bunyan, spent twelve years in Bedford gaol between 1660 and 1672. The Toleration Act of 1689 declared that as some ease to scrupulous consciences. Non-conformist clergy were exempted from the penal laws provided that they accepted most of the 39th article. The great majority of the Protestant dissenters were relieved from the operation of the penal laws and could worship in their own fashion. But the civic and public disabilities remained and they were still required to pay tithes.Less
The Glorious Revolution, which established the political context for Johnson's life, was a revolution in both Church and State. Since the restoration of Charles II, when the Church of England was re-established and its bishops reinstated, dissenters had suffered a number of serious disabilities. The most famous of Protestant dissenters, John Bunyan, spent twelve years in Bedford gaol between 1660 and 1672. The Toleration Act of 1689 declared that as some ease to scrupulous consciences. Non-conformist clergy were exempted from the penal laws provided that they accepted most of the 39th article. The great majority of the Protestant dissenters were relieved from the operation of the penal laws and could worship in their own fashion. But the civic and public disabilities remained and they were still required to pay tithes.
Jason Crawford
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- February 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198788041
- eISBN:
- 9780191833489
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198788041.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature, Poetry
This book is about the genealogies of modernity, and about the lingering power of some of the cultural forms against which modernity defines itself: religion, magic, the sacramental, the medieval. ...
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This book is about the genealogies of modernity, and about the lingering power of some of the cultural forms against which modernity defines itself: religion, magic, the sacramental, the medieval. The book explores the emergence of modernity by investigating the early modern poetics of allegorical narrative, a literary form that many modern writers have taken to be paradigmatically medieval. In four of the most substantial allegorical narratives produced in early modern England—William Langland’s Piers Plowman, John Skelton’s The Bowge of Courte, Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, and John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress—allegory is intimately linked with a self-conscious modernity, and with what many commentators have, in the last century, called “the disenchantment of the world.” The makers of these early modern narratives themselves take a keen interest in metaphors and postures of disenchantment. They fashion themselves as skeptics, spell-breakers, prophets against false institutions and false belief. And they often regard their own allegorical forms as another dangerous enchantment, a residue of the medieval past they have set out to renounce. In the context of various early modern crises of historical loss and revolutionary dissent, English poets from Langland to Bunyan become increasingly militant in their skepticism about allegory and about the theologies of incarnation that undergird it. But their self-regard also responds to paradoxes and anxieties at the core of allegory’s medieval poetics, and they discover that the things modernity has tried to repudiate—the old enchantments—are not as alien, or as absent, as they seem.Less
This book is about the genealogies of modernity, and about the lingering power of some of the cultural forms against which modernity defines itself: religion, magic, the sacramental, the medieval. The book explores the emergence of modernity by investigating the early modern poetics of allegorical narrative, a literary form that many modern writers have taken to be paradigmatically medieval. In four of the most substantial allegorical narratives produced in early modern England—William Langland’s Piers Plowman, John Skelton’s The Bowge of Courte, Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, and John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress—allegory is intimately linked with a self-conscious modernity, and with what many commentators have, in the last century, called “the disenchantment of the world.” The makers of these early modern narratives themselves take a keen interest in metaphors and postures of disenchantment. They fashion themselves as skeptics, spell-breakers, prophets against false institutions and false belief. And they often regard their own allegorical forms as another dangerous enchantment, a residue of the medieval past they have set out to renounce. In the context of various early modern crises of historical loss and revolutionary dissent, English poets from Langland to Bunyan become increasingly militant in their skepticism about allegory and about the theologies of incarnation that undergird it. But their self-regard also responds to paradoxes and anxieties at the core of allegory’s medieval poetics, and they discover that the things modernity has tried to repudiate—the old enchantments—are not as alien, or as absent, as they seem.
Vera J. Camden (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804757850
- eISBN:
- 9780804768450
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804757850.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
In 1649, the English people suffered a tremendous wound, a psychic lesion, as they both instigated and endured the killing of their king, Charles I. John Bunyan came of age in the shadow of this ...
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In 1649, the English people suffered a tremendous wound, a psychic lesion, as they both instigated and endured the killing of their king, Charles I. John Bunyan came of age in the shadow of this rupture in the political, social, and religious order of the nation; his life and works follow the contours of the Civil War, the Restoration, and the Glorious Revolution. Yet when compared with such contemporaries as John Milton, Andrew Marvell, or Samuel Pepys, he is strikingly silent about the political events of those tumultuous years. In his single-minded spirituality, Bunyan endures as an intriguing figure, but his conflicted political legacy remains subject to dispute. This book brings together eight early modern scholars who radically reassess the crises of authority, agency, and sexuality that have surrounded Bunyan since he first began to preach and to write. In his anguished, self-conscious pursuit of salvation, Bunyan augurs the dilemmas of modernity, and at the same time, vigorously espouses dissent and liberty. The essays in this collection examine the societal and psychological fault lines in the early modern culture that Bunyan himself epitomizes.Less
In 1649, the English people suffered a tremendous wound, a psychic lesion, as they both instigated and endured the killing of their king, Charles I. John Bunyan came of age in the shadow of this rupture in the political, social, and religious order of the nation; his life and works follow the contours of the Civil War, the Restoration, and the Glorious Revolution. Yet when compared with such contemporaries as John Milton, Andrew Marvell, or Samuel Pepys, he is strikingly silent about the political events of those tumultuous years. In his single-minded spirituality, Bunyan endures as an intriguing figure, but his conflicted political legacy remains subject to dispute. This book brings together eight early modern scholars who radically reassess the crises of authority, agency, and sexuality that have surrounded Bunyan since he first began to preach and to write. In his anguished, self-conscious pursuit of salvation, Bunyan augurs the dilemmas of modernity, and at the same time, vigorously espouses dissent and liberty. The essays in this collection examine the societal and psychological fault lines in the early modern culture that Bunyan himself epitomizes.
Vera J. Camden
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804757850
- eISBN:
- 9780804768450
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804757850.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
The life and writings of John Bunyan (1628–1688) follow the contours of the Civil War, Restoration, and Glorious Revolution that shaped England during the seventeenth century. When compared to such ...
More
The life and writings of John Bunyan (1628–1688) follow the contours of the Civil War, Restoration, and Glorious Revolution that shaped England during the seventeenth century. When compared to such contemporaries as John Milton, Samuel Pepys, or Andrew Marvell, however, Bunyan is remarkably silent about the events of those tumultuous years. This book examines the question of Bunyan's “political progress” and the tensions that have surrounded him since he first began to preach and write. It looks at T. S. Eliot's theory of the “dissociation of sensibility” as a watershed of the modern experience, linking that experience of dissociation to the oedipal victory enacted by Parliament in its violation of the primal taboo against regicide. The book also challenges the notion that there was a collective trauma suffered by England following the execution of Charles I. Other topics addressed by the book include religious pluralism and intolerance, rebellion against authority, the temptation to tyranny, the gendering of dissent and the dissent from gendered imperatives, and the impact of cultural change on the experience of national subjects.Less
The life and writings of John Bunyan (1628–1688) follow the contours of the Civil War, Restoration, and Glorious Revolution that shaped England during the seventeenth century. When compared to such contemporaries as John Milton, Samuel Pepys, or Andrew Marvell, however, Bunyan is remarkably silent about the events of those tumultuous years. This book examines the question of Bunyan's “political progress” and the tensions that have surrounded him since he first began to preach and write. It looks at T. S. Eliot's theory of the “dissociation of sensibility” as a watershed of the modern experience, linking that experience of dissociation to the oedipal victory enacted by Parliament in its violation of the primal taboo against regicide. The book also challenges the notion that there was a collective trauma suffered by England following the execution of Charles I. Other topics addressed by the book include religious pluralism and intolerance, rebellion against authority, the temptation to tyranny, the gendering of dissent and the dissent from gendered imperatives, and the impact of cultural change on the experience of national subjects.
Vera J. Camden
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804757850
- eISBN:
- 9780804768450
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804757850.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter examines John Bunyan's role in the national cataclysm of civil war. Drawing upon Erik Erikson's psychobiography of Martin Luther, Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History, ...
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This chapter examines John Bunyan's role in the national cataclysm of civil war. Drawing upon Erik Erikson's psychobiography of Martin Luther, Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History, it analyzes Bunyan's early years and how the regicide resonates with the young Bunyan's “masterless” state. As a young man, Bunyan served in Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army during the period when Charles I was captured and beheaded by parliamentary forces. The chapter argues that Bunyan's military service acted ironically as a moratorium from the deviancy of his youth and that the regimentation of army life provided him with the external discipline which enabled him to maintain his psychic structure. It also focuses on Bunyan's young manhood, recognizing the importance of his participation in the English Revolution; his “acting-out,” which he calls his “profligacy,” upon his discharge from the military and his return to Elstow; and the meanings of his various religious adventures and attractions before he met the Bedford women and the Bedford pastor, John Gifford.Less
This chapter examines John Bunyan's role in the national cataclysm of civil war. Drawing upon Erik Erikson's psychobiography of Martin Luther, Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History, it analyzes Bunyan's early years and how the regicide resonates with the young Bunyan's “masterless” state. As a young man, Bunyan served in Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army during the period when Charles I was captured and beheaded by parliamentary forces. The chapter argues that Bunyan's military service acted ironically as a moratorium from the deviancy of his youth and that the regimentation of army life provided him with the external discipline which enabled him to maintain his psychic structure. It also focuses on Bunyan's young manhood, recognizing the importance of his participation in the English Revolution; his “acting-out,” which he calls his “profligacy,” upon his discharge from the military and his return to Elstow; and the meanings of his various religious adventures and attractions before he met the Bedford women and the Bedford pastor, John Gifford.
Margaret J. M. Ezell
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804757850
- eISBN:
- 9780804768450
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804757850.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter argues that John Bunyan's relations to women, and theirs to him, are far more historically, artistically, and psychologically complex than most previous critics have suggested. Drawing ...
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This chapter argues that John Bunyan's relations to women, and theirs to him, are far more historically, artistically, and psychologically complex than most previous critics have suggested. Drawing on seventeenth-century women's literary history, it reexamines Bunyan's place in the gender politics of the early modern landscape and demonstrates that critics have curiously colluded with Bunyan himself in averting their gaze from the powerful feminine figures that populate his writings. The chapter looks at the controversies surrounding a woman named Margaret Pryor, who was accused of witchcraft after having been turned into a bay mare. This reported incident, along with the scandal of church member Agnes Beaumont riding behind him on horseback, illustrates the historical reality of the women found in Bunyan's writings but who are often considered mere footnotes in critical discussions. Bunyan's writings seem to reveal complex characterizations of femininity.Less
This chapter argues that John Bunyan's relations to women, and theirs to him, are far more historically, artistically, and psychologically complex than most previous critics have suggested. Drawing on seventeenth-century women's literary history, it reexamines Bunyan's place in the gender politics of the early modern landscape and demonstrates that critics have curiously colluded with Bunyan himself in averting their gaze from the powerful feminine figures that populate his writings. The chapter looks at the controversies surrounding a woman named Margaret Pryor, who was accused of witchcraft after having been turned into a bay mare. This reported incident, along with the scandal of church member Agnes Beaumont riding behind him on horseback, illustrates the historical reality of the women found in Bunyan's writings but who are often considered mere footnotes in critical discussions. Bunyan's writings seem to reveal complex characterizations of femininity.
Thomas H. Luxon
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804757850
- eISBN:
- 9780804768450
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804757850.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter examines John Bunyan's rejection of the female body in terms of its resonance with classical idealization of homoerotic friendship between males and the concomitant relegation of the ...
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This chapter examines John Bunyan's rejection of the female body in terms of its resonance with classical idealization of homoerotic friendship between males and the concomitant relegation of the feminine to a lesser spiritual capacity. By interpreting Bunyan's treatises on marriage and “Christian behavior” as well as his imaginative works, it reveals the disparagement of marriage and heterosexual union as the core of his anti-humanistic ideology. Bunyan's depiction of human sociality is related to the notion of “homosocial and homoerotic relation...as the foundation of self-recognition.” The link between oneness and the risen Christ celebrated in Bunyan's vision is essentially narcissistic. Bunyan's disavowal of sexual difference implies a refusal of the “real” in favor of an imaginary, dyadic surrender to the divine. The chapter also argues that Bunyan is forever complicit in a perverse politics of patriarchy.Less
This chapter examines John Bunyan's rejection of the female body in terms of its resonance with classical idealization of homoerotic friendship between males and the concomitant relegation of the feminine to a lesser spiritual capacity. By interpreting Bunyan's treatises on marriage and “Christian behavior” as well as his imaginative works, it reveals the disparagement of marriage and heterosexual union as the core of his anti-humanistic ideology. Bunyan's depiction of human sociality is related to the notion of “homosocial and homoerotic relation...as the foundation of self-recognition.” The link between oneness and the risen Christ celebrated in Bunyan's vision is essentially narcissistic. Bunyan's disavowal of sexual difference implies a refusal of the “real” in favor of an imaginary, dyadic surrender to the divine. The chapter also argues that Bunyan is forever complicit in a perverse politics of patriarchy.
Michael Davies
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804757850
- eISBN:
- 9780804768450
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804757850.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter, which comments on John Bunyan's “almost pathological revulsion towards sex” and his “equally powerful fascination with it,” examines the puns in Bunyan's writings and argues that his ...
More
This chapter, which comments on John Bunyan's “almost pathological revulsion towards sex” and his “equally powerful fascination with it,” examines the puns in Bunyan's writings and argues that his antipathy to the flesh is belied by his own agitated and explicitly erotic language. It explores whether it is possible for Bunyan to have indulged in sexual wordplay on a conscious level, as well as the purpose of such wordplay within the didactic frame of his doctrinal teaching on sin and salvation as a whole. The chapter argues that Bunyan's bawdy language is amusing but is not something to laugh about. Rather, Bunyan uses it to turn his reader away from sexual transgression and back to God. Central to the entire concept of salvation for Bunyan is the language of pregnancy and childbirth. The chapter also looks at his views about celibacy and marriage.Less
This chapter, which comments on John Bunyan's “almost pathological revulsion towards sex” and his “equally powerful fascination with it,” examines the puns in Bunyan's writings and argues that his antipathy to the flesh is belied by his own agitated and explicitly erotic language. It explores whether it is possible for Bunyan to have indulged in sexual wordplay on a conscious level, as well as the purpose of such wordplay within the didactic frame of his doctrinal teaching on sin and salvation as a whole. The chapter argues that Bunyan's bawdy language is amusing but is not something to laugh about. Rather, Bunyan uses it to turn his reader away from sexual transgression and back to God. Central to the entire concept of salvation for Bunyan is the language of pregnancy and childbirth. The chapter also looks at his views about celibacy and marriage.
