Imitatio Christi : the Poetics of Piety in Early Modern England / Nandra Perry.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Perry, Nandra, author.

Contributor:

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--Early modern, 1500-1700--History and criticism.

English literature.

Piety in literature.

Imitation in literature.

Christianity and literature--England--History--16th century.

Christianity and literature.

England.

History.

Christianity and literature--England--History--17th century.

Imitatio Christi.

Physical Description:

viii, 280 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Notre Dame, Indiana : University of Notre Dame Press, [2014]

Summary:

"In Imitatio Christi: The Poetics of Piety in Early Modern England, Nandra Perry explores the relationship of the traditional devotional paradigm of imitatio Christi to the theory and practice of literary imitation in early modern England. While imitation has long been recognized as a central feature of the period's pedagogy and poetics, the devotional practice of imitating Christ's life and Passion has been historically regarded as a minor element in English Protestant piety. Perry reconsiders the role of the imitatio Christi not only within English devotional culture but within the broader culture of literary imitation. She traces continuities and discontinuities between sacred and secular notions of proper imitation, showing how imitation worked in both contexts to address anxieties, widespread after the Protestant Reformation, about the reliability of "fallen" human language and the epistemological value of the body and the material world. The figure of Sir Philip Sidney-Elizabethan England's premier defender of poetry and internationally recognized paragon of Christian knighthood-functions as a nexus for Perry's treatment of a wide variety of contemporary literary and religious genres, all of them concerned in one way or another with the ethical and religious implications of imitation. Throughout the Elizabethan and early Stuart periods, the Sidney legacy was appropriated by men and women, Catholics and Protestants alike, making it an especially useful vehicle for tracing the complicated relationship of imitatio Christi to the various literary, confessional, and cultural contexts within and across which it often operated. Situating her project within a generously drawn version of the Sidney "circle" allows Perry to move freely across the boundaries that often delimit treatments of early modern English piety. Her book is a call for renewed attention to the imitation of Christ as a productive category of literary analysis, one that resists overly neat distinctions between Catholic and Protestant, sacred and secular, literary art and cultural artifact. "In Imitatio Christi: The Politics of Piety in Early Modern England, Nandra Perry explores the significance of imitatio Christi in the early modern English humanist tradition. In so doing, she reveals the tradition to be nothing less than a way to think, an organization for one's way in the world. She exposes the seriousness of religious thought in this period and the ways in which previous scholarship has limited our understanding by trying to graft authentic religious gestures onto anachronistic, secular divides." -Ken Jackson, Wayne State University "-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

1 The Church Eloquent: Thomas Rogers, Philip Sidney, and the Reformed Body Visible 17

The Word Made Text: Thomas Rogers and Early Modern Imitatio 22

The Word Made Flesh: Philip Sidney and the Defence of Poesy 49

2 The Sound of Silence: Elizabeth Cary and the Christian Hero 65

The Tragedy ofMariam: Hagiographical Contexts and Subtexts 69

Cary the (Heroic) Author 94

3 The "Book of Virtue": Reading the Royal Body in The New Arcadia and Eikon Basilike 107

Reading the Body Natural in The Practice of Pietie 114

Reading the Royal Body in Eikon Basilike 129

Pamela, Charles, and the Royal "Book of Virtue" 140

4 The Church (P)articulate: Breaking the Body Visible in Eikonoklastes 157

Altars, Mothers, Fathers, and Martyrs: Reading the Body in Ceremonialist and Anticeremonialist Polemic 161

Gross Anatomy: Milton Dissects the King's Book 181

Postscript: A Voice in the Wilderness 195.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780268038410

0268038414

OCLC:

866615634