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The Literary Culture of the Reformation: Grammar and Grace

Online ISBN:
9780191674709
Print ISBN:
9780198187356
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

The Literary Culture of the Reformation: Grammar and Grace

Brian Cummings
Brian Cummings
Lecturer in English, University of Sussex
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Published:
5 December 2002
Online ISBN:
9780191674709
Print ISBN:
9780198187356
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

This book examines the place of literature in the Reformation, considering both how arguments about biblical meaning and literary interpretation influenced the new theology, and how developments in theology in turn influenced literary practices. Part One focuses on Northern Europe, reconsidering the relationship between Renaissance humanism (especially Erasmus) and religious ideas (especially Luther). Parts Two and Three examine Tudor and early Stuart England. Part Two describes the rise of vernacular theology and Protestant culture in relation to fundamental changes in the understanding of the English language. Part Three studies English religious poetry (including Donne, Herbert, and, in an Epilogue, Milton) in the wake of these changes. Bringing together genres and styles of writing that are normally kept apart (poems, sermons, treatises, commentaries), the author offers a re-evaluation of the literary production of this intensely verbal and controversial period.

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