Calvinism and Literature

2020 ◽  
pp. 94-114
Author(s):  
Mark S. Sweetnam
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
John Donne ◽  
George Herbert ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Critical History ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Europe

Calvinists wrote indefatigably, flooding early modern Europe with sermons and commentaries, theological treatises and works of polemic. But for some critics, early modern Calvinism has seemed fundamentally inimical to the production of literature in any form. These views have retreated in the face of recent work, which has highlighted—or, at any rate, acknowledged—the Calvinism of some significant authors. These efforts have been most sustained where the poetry of John Donne and George Herbert is concerned. The critical history of these two poets provides us with an excellent, if not altogether encouraging, case study in the search for a Calvinist poetic.

Renaissance Mass Murder

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen D. Bowd
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social History ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Mass Murder ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Italian Wars ◽  
Human Tragedy

Renaissance Mass Murder explores the devastating impact of war on the men and women of the Renaissance. In contrast to the picture of balance and harmony usually associated with the Renaissance, it uncovers in forensic detail a world in which sacks of Italian cities and massacres of civilians at the hands of French, German, Spanish, Swiss, and Italian troops were regular occurrences. The arguments presented are based on a wealth of evidence—histories and chronicles, poetry and paintings, sculpture and other objects—which together provide a new and startling history of sixteenth-century Italy and a social history of the Italian Wars. It outlines how massacres happened, how princes, soldiers, lawyers, and writers, justified and explained such events, and how they were represented in contemporary culture. On this basis the book reconstructs the terrifying individual experiences of civilians in the face of war and in doing so offers a story of human tragedy which redresses the balance of the history of the Italian Wars, and of Renaissance warfare, in favour of the civilian and away from the din of the battlefield. This book also places mass murder in a broader historical context and challenges claims that such violence was unusual or in decline in early modern Europe. Finally, it shows that women often suffered disproportionately from this violence and that immunity for them, as for their children, was often partially developed or poorly respected.

scholarly journals Cultural History, Ritual and Performance: George L. Mosse in Context

2021 ◽  
pp. 002200942094003
Author(s):  
Peter Burke
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Performance Studies ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Cultural Turn

George L. Mosse took a ‘cultural turn’ in the latter part of his career, but still early enough to make a pioneering contribution to the study of political culture and in particular what he called political ‘liturgy’, including marches, processions, and practices of commemoration. He adapted to the study of nationalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the approach to the history of ritual developed by historians of medieval and early modern Europe, among them his friend Ernst Kantorowicz. More recently, the concept of ritual, whether religious or secular, has been criticized by some cultural historians on the grounds that it implies a fixed ‘script’ in situations that were actually marked by fluidity and improvisation. In this respect cultural historians have been part of a wider trend that includes sociologists and anthropologists as well as theatre scholars and has been institutionalized as Performance Studies. Some recent studies of contemporary nationalism in Tanzania, Venezuela and elsewhere have adopted this perspective, emphasizing that the same performance may have different meanings for different sections of the audience. It is only to be regretted that Mosse did not live long enough to respond to these studies and that their authors seem unaware of his work.

Lost (and Found) in Translation: A Cultural History of Translators and Translating in Early Modern Europe

2007 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER BURKE
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
General Phenomenon ◽  
Lost And Found ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
Special Case ◽  
Made In

Attempting to combine cultural history with translation studies, this article examines translation between languages as a special case of a more general phenomenon, translation between cultures. It surveys printed translations made in Europe between 1500 and 1700, discussing which kinds of people translated which kinds of book from and into which languages. Particular attention is given to the reconstruction of the early modern ‘regime’ of translation, in other words the manner (free or literal, domesticating or ‘foreignizing’) in which translations were made.

Jesuits and Islam in Early Modern Europe

2018 ◽  
pp. 348-378
Author(s):  
Emanuele Colombo
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
History Of ◽  
Jesuit Missionaries ◽  
Ignatius Of Loyola ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
Willingness To Engage

This chapter discusses Jesuit narratives of Islam and the Jesuits’ approaches to Muslims in early modern Europe. It argues that the Jesuits’ interaction with Islam was a key component of the Society’s identity, despite the fact that the order was not celebrated for the success of this interaction. It explores the desire of Ignatius of Loyola and the first Jesuits to convert Muslims; the history of Muslims who converted to Catholicism and joined the Society of Jesus; the Jesuits’ tension between a polemical attitude and a missionary approach to Muslims; and, finally, the Jesuits’ willingness to engage Islam and their attempts to study Arabic during this period. The chapter sheds new light on the presence of Islam in early modern Europe and helps our understanding of views that also influenced early modern Jesuit missionaries overseas, most of whom undertook their formation in Europe.

scholarly journals Freethinking and Humanism: Abbasid Moods and Universal Motifs

Hawliyat ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 15-31
Author(s):  
Aziz AL-AZMEH
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Age Of Reason ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
Basic Ideas

This article proposes that the history of freethinking, especially the cognitive, ethical and political critiques of religion, contained a number of basic ideas and motifs which persisted through Antiquity, Abbasid times, early modern Europe in the Age of Reason, and the Renaissance. It describes these ideas, especially in the form they took in the Abbasid era, with some indications of context, and certain elements intended to help trace the complex history of interconnections between different times and different continents.

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