This book examines the relationship between literature and religious conflict in seventeenth-century England, showing how literary texts grew out of and addressed the contemporary controversy over ceremonial worship. Examining the meaning and function of religion in seventeenth-century England, Achsah Guibbory shows that the conflicts over religious ceremony that were central to the English Revolution had broad cultural significance. She offers new and original readings of Herbert, Herrick, Browne and Milton in this context.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Acknowledgments; 1. Introduction; 2. Reading the conflicts: ceremony, ideology and the meaning of religion; 3. George Herbert: devotion in The Temple and the art of contradiction; 4. Robert Herrick: religious experience in the 'Temple' of Hesperides; 5. Sir Thomas Browne: the promiscuous embrace of ritual order; 6. John Milton: carnal idolatry and the reconfiguration of worship, part I, 1634-1660; 7. John Milton: carnal idolatry and the reconfiguration of worship, part II, after the Restoration: the major poems; Notes; Index.
