Early Modern Asceticism : Literature, Religion, and Austerity in the English Renaissance / Patrick J. McGrath.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McGrath, Patrick J., Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Spirituality in literature.

England.

Genre:

History.

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (247 pages)

Place of Publication:

Toronto : University of Toronto Press, [2020]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

"In discussions of the works of Donne, Milton, Marvell, and Bunyan, Early Modern Asceticism shows how conflicting approaches to asceticism animate depictions of sexuality, subjectivity, and embodiment in early modern literature and religion. The book challenges the perception that the Renaissance marks a decisive shift in attitudes towards the body, sex, and the self. In early modernity, self-respect was a Satanic impulse that had to be annihilated--the body was not celebrated, but beaten into subjection--and, feeling circumscribed by sexual desire, ascetics found relief in pain, solitude, and deformity. On the basis of this austerity, Early Modern Asceticism questions the ease with which scholarship often elides the early and the modern."-- Provided by publisher

Contents:

John Donne and asceticism

A Mask, asceticism, and Caroline culture

The virgin's body and the natural world in Lycidas

Upon Appleton House and the impossibility of asceticism

Self-denial, monasticism, and The Pilgrim's Progress

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 06. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

1-4875-3200-8

1-4875-3199-0

OCLC:

1128823217