"Interesting and timely. Compellingly demonstrating that central texts of English Renaissance literature were shaped in response to the Bible, Ferguson's work is distinguished by a real familiarity with scripture and illuminating close readings." --Alan Stewart, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University "The publication of the Bible, from Erasmus' 1516 New Testament onwards, might be called the literary event of the century. This is not only a matter of the text itself, but also of the enormous effort of interpretation-and literary theory-which it inspired. Jamie Ferguson carefully takes us through this fascinating and important terrain." --Brian Cummings, Anniversary Professor of English and Related Literature, University of York "Through meticulous, historically informed readings, Jamie Ferguson argues that Reformation hermeneutics shaped early modern English language and literature, including not only religious literature like the Sidney Psalms and Donne's sermons but secular works like Donne's erotic poems and Shakespeare's Sonnets. He compels us to reassess the categories of sacred and secular as well as the relationship between literary authority and the traditions-scriptural, ecclesiastical, rhetorical, Ciceronian, Petrarchan-against which it was tested." --Hannibal Hamlin, Professor of English, The Ohio State University The expressive and literary capacities of post-Reformation English were largely shaped in response to the Bible. Faith in the Language examines the convergence of biblical interpretation and English literature, from William Tyndale to John Donne, and argues that the groundwork for a newly authoritative literary tradition in early modern England is laid in the discourse of biblical hermeneutics. The period 1525-1611 witnessed a proliferation of English biblical versions, provoking a century-long debate about how and whether the Bible should be rendered in English. These public, indeed institutional accounts of biblical English changed the language: questions about the relation between Scripture and exegetical tradition that shaped post-Reformation hermeneutics bore strange fruit in secular literature that defined itself through varying forms of autonomy vis-a-vis prior tradition. Jamie H. Ferguson is Associate Professor of Honors and English at the University of Houston. .

The expressive and literary capacities of post-Reformation English were largely shaped in response to the Bible. Faith in the Language examines the convergence of biblical interpretation and English literature, from William Tyndale to John Donne, and argues that the groundwork for a newly authoritative literary tradition in early modern England is laid in the discourse of biblical hermeneutics. The period 1525-1611 witnessed a proliferation of English biblical versions, provoking a century-long debate about how and whether the Bible should be rendered in English. These public, indeed institutional accounts of biblical English changed the language: questions about the relation between Scripture and exegetical tradition that shaped post-Reformation hermeneutics bore strange fruit in secular literature that defined itself through varying forms of autonomy vis-a-vis prior tradition.

Assessing early modern literature and England’s Long Reformation, this book challenges the notion that the English Reformation ended in the sixteenth century, or even by the seventeenth century. Contributions by literary scholars and historians of religion put these two disciplines in critical conversation with each other, in order to examine a complex, messy, and long-drawn-out process of reformation that continued well beyond the significant political and religious upheavals of the sixteenth century. The aim of this conversation is to generate new perspectives on the constant remaking of the Reformation—or Reformations, as some scholars prefer to characterize the multiple religious upheavals and changes, both Catholic and Protestant—of the early modern period. This interdisciplinary book makes a major contribution to debates about the nature and length of England’s Long Reformation. Early Modern Literature and England’s Long Reformation is essential reading for scholars and students considering the interconnections between literature and religion in the early modern period. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Reformation.

This interdisciplinary volume of essays brings together a team of leading early modern historians and literary scholars in order to examine the changing conceptions, character, and condemnation of 'heresy' in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. Definitions of 'heresy' and 'heretics' were the subject of heated controversies in England from the English Reformation to the end of the seventeenth century. These essays illuminate the significant literary issues involved in both defending and demonising heretical beliefs, including the contested hermeneutic strategies applied to the interpretation of the Bible, and they examine how debates over heresy stimulated the increasing articulation of arguments for religious toleration in England. Offering fresh perspectives on John Milton, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and others, this volume should be of interest to all literary, religious and political historians working on early modern English culture.

This book explores the role of literature as a means of mediating religious conflict in early modern England. Marking a new stage in the ‘religious turn’ that generated vigorous discussion of the changes and conflicts brought about by the Reformation, it unites new historicist readings with an interest in the ideological significance of aesthetic form. It proceeds from the assumption that confessional differences did not always erupt into hostilities but that people also had to arrange themselves with divided loyalties – between the old faith and the new, between religious and secular interests, between officially sanctioned and privately held beliefs. What role might literature have played here? Can we conceive of literary representations as possible sites of de-escalation? Do different discursive, aesthetic, or social contexts inflect or deflect the demands of religious loyalties? Such questions open a new perspective on post-Reformation English culture and literature.

Using as a primary focus the manner in which Protestant and Catholic paradigms of the Word affect the understanding of how meaning manifests itself in material language, this book develops a history of literacy between the middle of the sixteenth century and the middle of the seventeenth century. The author emphasizes how literacy is defined according to changing concepts of philological manifestation and embodiment, and how various social and political factors influence these concepts. The study looks at literary texts such as The Fairie Queene, early Shakespearean comedies, sermons and poems by John Donne, Latin textbooks and religious primers, and educational and religious treatises which illustrate how language could be used to perform spiritual functions. The cross section of texts serves to illustrate the pervasive applicability of the author's theories to early modern literature and culture, and their relationship to literature. the study of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literature: Protestant reading and exegetical strategies in contrast with Catholic strategies, and secular versus spiritual literacies.

Assessing early modern literature and England's Long Reformation, this book challenges the notion that the English Reformation ended in the sixteenth century, or even by the seventeenth century. Contributions by literary scholars and historians of religion put these two disciplines in critical conversation with each other, in order to examine a complex, messy, and long-drawn-out process of reformation that continued well beyond the significant political and religious upheavals of the sixteenth century. The aim of this conversation is to generate new perspectives on the constant remaking of the Reformation--or Reformations, as some scholars prefer to characterize the multiple religious upheavals and changes, both Catholic and Protestant--of the early modern period. This interdisciplinary book makes a major contribution to debates about the nature and length of England's Long Reformation. Early Modern Literature and England's Long Reformation is essential reading for scholars and students considering the interconnections between literature and religion in the early modern period. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Reformation.