The Johannine Renaissance in Early Modern English Literature and Theology

Erscheinungsjahr 2018
ISBN: 978-0-19-880871-8
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 368 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 726 g

The Johannine Renaissance in Early Modern English Literature and Theology argues that the Fourth Gospel and First Epistle of Saint John the Evangelist were so influential during the early modern period in England as to share with Pauline theology pride of place as leading apostolic texts on matters Christological, sacramental, pneumatological, and political. The book argues further that, in several instances, Johannine theology is more central than both
Pauline theology and the Synoptic theology of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, particularly with regard to early modern polemicizing on the Trinity, distinctions between agape and eros, and the ideologies of radical dissent, especially the seventeenth-century antinomian challenge of free grace to traditional Puritan
Pietism.

In particular, early modern religious poetry, including works by Robert Southwell, George Herbert, John Donne, Richard Crashaw, Thomas Traherne, and Anna Trapnel, embraces a distinctive form of Johannine devotion that emphasizes the divine rather than human nature of Christ; the belief that salvation is achieved more through revelation than objective atonement and expiatory sin; a realized eschatology; a robust doctrine of assurance and comfort; and a stylistic and rhetorical approach to
representing these theological features that often emulates John's mode of discipleship misunderstanding and dramatic irony. Early modern Johannine devotion assumes that religious lyrics often express a revelatory poetics that aims to clarify, typically through the use of dramatic irony, some of the
deepest mysteries of the Fourth Gospel and First Epistle.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Cefalu, Paul

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Kirchengeschichte Frühes Christentum, Patristik, Christliche Archäologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Systematische Theologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Lyrik und Dichter
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik

Über Autor(innen)

Paul Cefalu is the Frank Lee and Edna M. Smith Professor in the Department of English at Lafayette College.