The Bible

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannibal Hamlin
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
English Language ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Early Modern Literature ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Christian Religion ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Epics ◽  
Bible Reading ◽  
Made In

The Christian religion is based on the Bible, and no book had a greater influence on early modern English literature. The Bible was at the heart of the early modern culture of translation, and the English language was affected by the efforts of William Tyndale, Miles Coverdale, and others to properly render the Bible’s original Hebrew and Greek. Since understanding and following the Bible was necessary to salvation, and the Bible is often difficult, Bible reading also demanded interpretation, and this led to the proliferation of interpretive aids: biblical paratexts, sermons, and commentaries. Translation is necessarily interpretive, in the choices made in English Bibles, but especially in broader paraphrases and adaptations, from the metrical Psalms of Sternhold and Hopkins and Philip and Mary Sidney to the biblical epics of Du Bartas, Abraham Cowley, and Milton. Much of early modern literature could be described as an effort to understand the Bible.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Brownlee
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Early Modern Literature ◽  
Short Discussion ◽  
Departure Point ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Profound Influence ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
The Relationship

The Introduction begins with a short discussion of George Herbert’s ‘H. Scriptures II’, a poem that demonstrates, unequivocally, literary interest in the particularities of biblical interpretation. This poem serves as a departure point for a broader survey of scripture’s profound influence on early modern culture and a preview of the book’s objectives. Acknowledging the Bible’s impact on individuals’ daily habits, education, and modes of reading and writing, as well as the period’s poetry, drama, and art, the discussion situates the book’s central concerns and questions in relation to the critical field. Historical and critical approaches to the relationship between early modern literature and the Bible are considered, and a brief preview of the chapters is offered by way of conclusion.

Biblical Readings and Literary Writings in Early Modern England, 1558-1625

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Brownlee
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Song Of Songs ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Narratives ◽  
Biblical Commentaries ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Bible Reading ◽  
Selection Of

This book provides an account of the how the Bible was read and applied in early modern England, and maps the connection between these readings and various forms of writing. The Bible had a profound impact on early modern culture, and Bible-reading shaped the period’s drama, poetry, and life writings, as well as sermons and biblical commentaries. This book argues that literary writings bear the hallmarks of the period’s dominant exegetical practices, and do interpretative work. Tracing the impact of biblical reading across a range of genres and writers, the discussion demonstrates that literary reimaginings of, and allusions to, the Bible were common, varied, and ideologically evocative. The book explores how a series of popularly interpreted biblical narratives were recapitulated in the work of a diverse selection of writers, some of whom remain relatively unknown. In early modern England, the figures of Solomon, Job, and Christ’s mother, Mary, and the books of Song of Songs and Revelation, are enmeshed in different ways with contemporary concerns, and their usage illustrates how the Bible’s narratives could be turned to a fascinating array of debates. Showing the multifarious contexts in which biblical narratives were deployed, this book argues that Protestant interpretative practices both contribute to, and problematize, literary constructions of a range of theological, political, and social debates.

Reading Early Modern literature through OED3

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-39
Author(s):  
Giles Goodland
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Early Modern Literature ◽  
Oxford English Dictionary ◽  
Literary Language ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Loan Word ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Selection Of

We may think we know what a neologism is, but it is hard to isolate the nature of the moment in which neologizing occurs. In literature sometimes this moment is enacted for effects that may not belong to the discourses of normal communication, and these effects are compounded when it is a loan-neologism. The Early Modern period was one of increasing contact between the languages of Europe, and literature responded to this in a variety of ways. This paper looks at neologistic borrowings into English literature, using a selection of canonical authors as refracted through the Oxford English Dictionary, to see if they can tell us something about the porousness of literary language in this period. Keywords: Oxford English Dictionary; Shakespeare; Jonson; Dryden; Skelton; loan word; neologism

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