Understanding Fanny

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 229-245
Author(s):  
Rachel Kilgore
Keyword(s):  
Church Attendance ◽  
Direct Influence ◽  
Shared Experience ◽  
Book Of Common Prayer ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Recent Interest ◽  
Common Prayer ◽  
Spiritual Expression ◽  
Hebrew Tradition

Abstract Though there has been recent interest in how Jane Austen’s faith influenced her novels, scholars have generally looked to her reading in philosophy and sermons, her spiritual expression, or her Anglicanism, and have neglected the more direct influence of the Bible. Yet judging from Austen’s lifelong church attendance and her reading of the Book of Common Prayer, we can conclude that she would have heard the Psalms read entirely through once every month of her forty-one years. This paper explores the resemblance between the psalmists and Fanny Price in terms of their shared experience of exile, their patterns of lament and reminder, their long wait for deliverance, and their final homecoming. Comparing Fanny Price’s character to the psalmists recasts her as a heroine in the Hebrew tradition, offering a new understanding of her passivity and suggesting that her author was more influenced by scriptural patterns than has been heretofore understood.

The battle of the books: the Authorized Version and the Book of Common Prayer at the Restoration

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bagchi
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Book Of Common Prayer ◽  
Civil Unrest ◽  
Prayer Book ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Common Prayer

This chapter examines the theme of disruption and continuity in English religious life at the Restoration with reference to the differing fortunes of those twin pillars of the Anglican establishment, the Authorized Version of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. The AV had commanded broad acceptance under the Commonwealth and its re-authorization in 1660 was unproblematic. The BCP, by contrast, had long been reviled by hotter Protestants for its conservatism, especially in Archbishop William Laud’s 1637 version which had helped trigger civil war. Its re-introduction in 1662 occasioned the resignation of one-fifth of the clergy. This chapter challenges the characterization of the 1662 Prayer Book (in contrast with the AV) as solely divisive, however. It argues that universal acceptance of the book was impossible under the circumstances but that, by rejecting the most offensive Laudian innovations, Convocation successfully minimized the inevitable backlash and avoided any larger-scale secession or civil unrest.

Preambles: Time and the Prayer Book

2020 ◽  
pp. 36-59
Author(s):  
Charles Hefling
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Sacred Text ◽  
Book Of Common Prayer ◽  
Prayer Book ◽  
Liturgical Year ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
Common Prayer

The “prelims” of the Book of Common Prayer include a number of tables, rules, schedules, and lists. All of these are necessary for specifying components of Divine Service that vary from day to day, most importantly the reading and recitation of passages from Christian scripture. The specification is significant in two ways, which this chapter will discuss. On the one hand, the various instructions situate Prayer Book worship in time, and more particularly within the annual sequence of holydays and seasons known as the ecclesiastical or liturgical year. On the other hand, they define the relation of the Book of Common Prayer to the still more sacred text of the Bible.

The Place of the Prayer Book in the Western Liturgical Tradition

1950 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-14
Author(s):  
Massey H. Shepherd
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Book Of Common Prayer ◽  
Prayer Book ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Catholic Tradition ◽  
Common Prayer ◽  
The Catholic Church

The theme of this address, in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the First Book of Common Prayer, may be stated in the words of the late Miss Evelyn Underhill:Anglican worship is a special development of the traditional Christian cultus; and not merely a variant of Continental Protestantism. … It forms, with the Bible or Lectionary, the authorized Missal and Breviary of the English branch of the Catholic Church. Its use is obligatory, and its contents declare in unmistakable terms the adherence of that Church to the great Catholic tradition of Christendom and the general conformity of its worship to the primitive ritual type.

‘Nobody must be allowed to “talk Bible”’: Dorothy L. Sayers' Use of the Authorized Version and the Coverdale Psalms in The Man Born to be King

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 144-165
Author(s):  
Kathryn Wehr
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
General Rule ◽  
Book Of Common Prayer ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Greek New Testament ◽  
Scholarly Discussion ◽  
Radio Play ◽  
Common Prayer

Dorothy L. Sayers' 1941–1942 radio play cycle on the life of Christ, The Man Born to be King, is often lauded for its use of the vernacular, though the scholarly discussion of this aspect of her work often creates the false impression that Sayers was working with a Greek New Testament in one hand and a blank piece of paper in the others. This study focuses on the subtle but clear evidence of Sayers' use of the Authorized Version of the Bible, particularly in the areas of narration and Old Testament quotation as well as additional evidence of the Coverdale Psalms from the Book of Common Prayer. Tables at the end of the article also offer the chance for readers to see the evidence upon which conclusions are made and perhaps build for their own research. These three areas—narration, Old Testament quotation and Psalm quotation—, while clearly exceptions to the general rule of original dramatization of biblical material, show Sayers working with all available tools in a dynamic, rather than iconoclastic process.

The Book of Common Prayer: A Guide

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Hefling
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
The United States ◽  
History Of The Book ◽  
Book Of Common Prayer ◽  
Prayer Book ◽  
Corporate Worship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Common Prayer ◽  
The Church

This book surveys the contents and the history of the Book of Common Prayer, a sacred text which has been a foundational document of the Church of England and the other churches in the worldwide community of Anglican Christianity. The Prayer Book is primarily a liturgical text—a set of scripts for enacting events of corporate worship. As such it is at once a standard of theological doctrine and an expression of spirituality. The first part of this survey begins with an examination of one Prayer Book liturgy, known as Divine Service, in some detail. Also discussed are the rites for weddings, ordinations, and funerals and for the sacraments of Baptism and Communion. The second part considers the original version of the Book of Common Prayer in the context of the sixteenth-century Reformation, then as revised and built into the Elizabethan settlement of religion in England. Later chapters discuss the reception, revision, rejection, and restoration of the Prayer Book during its first hundred years. The establishment of the text in its classical form in 1662 was followed by a “golden age” in the eighteenth century, which included the emergence of a modified version in the United States. The narrative concludes with a chapter on the displacement of the Book of Common Prayer as a norm of Anglican identity. Two specialized chapters concentrate on the Prayer Book as a visible artifact and as a text set to music.

The Historical Background of the English Lectionary of 1955

1958 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-86
Author(s):  
Geoffrey G. Willis
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Book Of Common Prayer ◽  
Prayer Book ◽  
The People ◽  
Common Prayer ◽  
The Church

The preface to the Book of Common Prayer, entitled Concerning the Service of the Church since 1662, but before that simply The Preface, was derived substantially from the preface to the revised Breviary of Quiñones, which was one of the sources for the revised daily offices of the Church of England. It appeals from what it considers the corruptions of the medieval office to the ‘godly and decent order of the ancient Fathers’. This order, it says, was devised for the systematic reading of holy scripture in the offices of the Church, and it was the intention of the compilers of the English Prayer Book to restore such a regular order of reading for the instruction of the people. It represented a revolt against three features of the lessons in the medieval breviary: first, against the frequent interruptions of the reading of scripture in course by the occurrence of feasts with proper lessons; secondly, the lack of completeness and continuity in the lessons themselves; and thirdly, the use of non-biblical material in the lessons. Even if the daily office of the breviary, which is based on the ecclesiastical year, were not interrupted by any immoveable feasts having proper lessons, it would still not provide for the reading of the whole of scripture, as its lessons are too short, and also the variable lessons are confined to the night office.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document