Articles liés à Bold Conscience: Luther to Shakespeare to Milton

Bold Conscience: Luther to Shakespeare to Milton - Couverture souple

Held, Joshua R.

 
9780817361112: Bold Conscience: Luther to Shakespeare to Milton
Couverture souple
ISBN 10 : 0817361111 ISBN 13 : 9780817361112
Editeur : The University of Alabama Press, 2023

Synopsis

How the conscience in early modern England emerged as a fulcrum for public action

Bold Conscience chronicles the shifting conception of conscience in early modern England, as it evolved from a faculty of restraint--what Shakespeare labels "coward conscience"--to one of bold and forthright self-assertion. The concept of conscience played an important role in post-Reformation England, from clerical leaders to laymen, not least because of its central place in determining loyalties during the English Civil War and the regicide of King Charles I. Yet the most complex and lasting perspectives on conscience emerged from deliberately literary voices--William Shakespeare, John Donne, and John Milton.

Joshua Held argues that literary texts by these authors transform the idea of conscience as a private, shameful state to one of boldness fit for navigating both royal power and common dissent in the public realm. Held tracks the increasing political power of conscience from Shakespeare's Hamlet and Henry VIII to Donne's court sermons and Milton's Areopagitica, showing finally that in Paradise Lost, Milton roots boldness in the inner paradise of a pure, common conscience.

Applying a fine-grain analysis to literary England from about 1601 to 1667, this study also looks back to the 1520s, to Luther's theological foundations of the concept, and forward to 1689, to Locke's transformation of the idea alongside the term "consciousness." Ultimately, Held's study shows how conscience emerges at once as a bulwark against absolute sovereignty and as a stronghold of personal certainty.

Les informations fournies dans la section « Synopsis » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

À propos de l'auteur

Joshua R. Held is assistant professor of English at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. His scholarship has appeared in Studies in Philology, Modern Philology, Milton Studies, and Shakespeare Survey.

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Éditeur
The University of Alabama Press
Date d'édition
2023
Langue
anglais
ISBN 10 
0817361111
ISBN 13 
9780817361112
Reliure
Broché
Nombre de pages
248
Coordonnées du fabricant
non disponible
Personne responsable
non disponible