Biblical Readings and Literary Writings in Early Modern England, 1558–1625 by Victoria Brownlee

Abstract

 Reviews ‘Kempe’s printers assumed the position of the primary mediators, beneficiaries, and publishers of the author’s life and work’ (p. ). Chapter  elaborates on Michael Bennett’s proposal that, via his Poems and Carols, John Audelay attempts to rehabilitate his name in the wake of his scandalous implication in an attempted murder one Easter morning on holy ground. e collection’s very ordinariness was central to this effort; ‘Audelay might have wanted to create an impression of respectability by attaching his name to a book of familiar and useful orthodox texts’ (p. ). is chapter is especially good in its reading of Audelay’s ‘perpetual illness’, the pain of which ‘is turned into a lesson for his readers, whose spiritual progress he desired to further and whose prayers he desired to garner’ (p. ). Charles, unlike Hoccleve, Kempe, and Audelay, suffered no illnesses that led to his exclusion from society. Chapter  traces ‘the historical conditions that shaped Charles’s iteration of the self-publishing pose’ (p. ): the elegant figure depicted in his French verses secured his elevated status in his homeland, while the bumbling author of the English verses, which Critten believes he did compose, ‘was designed to diffuse distrust among his English gaolers, who had been primed to be wary of his supposedly cauteleux, or wily, disposition’ (p. ). is is for the most part a careful, considered book on an important and understudied topic. If not every claim supports his overall argument, Critten nevertheless succeeds in placing manuscript studies at the heart of literary interpretation . Author, Scribe, and Book contributes substantially to this important field of study. K’ C L L W Biblical Readings and Literary Writings in Early Modern England, –. By V B. Oxford: Oxford University Press. . viii+ pp.£. ISBN-––––. is adaptation of Victoria Brownlee’s doctoral thesis provides a fresh addition to the recent trend of literary and historicist evaluations of the Bible’s role in early modern England, devoting much-needed attention to reading practices and hermeneutics . It focuses on the treatment of biblical figures and episodes by a variety of writers, fleshed out by many rewarding readings of understudied texts. Chapter  discusses ‘[t]he conventions of early modern Bible-reading and the influence of the period’s exegetical culture’ (p. ). Its discussion of context is strong, and the discussion of ‘modes of reading’—biblical aids and writing in the Bible—is a welcome addition to paratextual research. Chapter  turns its attention to typological uses of King Solomon in visual art, sermons, drama, and other writings, arguing that such ‘Solomonic royal iconography affirms that [. . .] there remained, on some level, a need for tangible expressions of the sacred’, but that these ‘reimaginings’ are ‘unable to erase fully the unfavourable aspects of his reign from view’ (p. ). e Solomonic reading of James I here is a particular highlight. We move from King Solomon to Lear in Chapter , which analyses the two Jobs MLR, .,   of e True Chronicle History of King Leir and King Lear. It has the particular aim of demonstrating a Joban narrative of suffering as informing the earlier play, as its role in the latter is widely acknowledged. While the reading of the narrative of suffering in the play is engaging, I am not wholly convinced that such a common and flexible narrative is specifically Joban, as its basic points—rejection by family, exile to a far country, emotional and physical suffering, ending in redemption—are characteristic of many biblical suffering narratives and would benefit from being placed in this broader context. Chapter  contains a strong contextual discussion of the Song of Songs and the Protestant struggle to derive a spiritual reading from what is a literally erotic text. It explores a variety of writers’ tendencies to fall back on ‘textually tenuous readings’ (p. ) and usefully highlights the struggles of exegetes. Chapter  offers a welcome treatment of women’s writings on ‘Marian Maternity’ and features some fascinating close reading of women’s work, adding to the (still rather slight) body of literature on women’s religious writing in the early modern period. e texts are little discussed and interesting in their own right, and...