Literature and the Scottish Reformation

Throughout the twentieth century Scottish literary studies was dominated by a critical consensus that critiqued contemporary anti-Catholic by advancing a re-reading of the Reformation. This consensus understood that Scotland's rich medieval culture had been replaced with an anti-aesthetic tyranny of life and letters. As a result, Scottish literature has consistently been defined in opposition to the Calvinism to which it frequently returns. Yet, as the essays in this collection show, such a consensus appears increasingly untenable in light both of recent research and a more detailed survey of Scottish literature. This collection launches a full-scale reconsideration of the series of relationships between literature and reformation in early modern Scotland. Previous scholarship in this area has tended to dismiss the literary value of the writing of the period - largely as a reaction to its regular theological interests. Instead the essays in this volume reinforce recent work that challenges the received scholarly consensus by taking these interests seriously. This volume argues for the importance of this religiously orientated writing, through the adoption of a series of interdisciplinary approaches. Arranged chronologically, the collection concentrates on major authors and texts while engaging with a number of contemporary critical issues and so highlighting, for example, writing by women in the period. It addresses the concerns of historians and theologians who have routinely accepted the established reading of this period of literary history in Scotland and offers a radically new interpretation of the complex relationships between literature and religious reform in early modern Scotland.

Autorentext

Crawford Gribben, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland; and David George Mullan, Cape Breton University, Canada

Inhalt

Contents: Introduction, Crawford Gribben; Part I Contexts: Writing the Scottish reformation, David George Mullan; Language attitudes and choice in the Scottish reformation, Marina Dossena; 'The divine fury of the Muses'; neo-Latin poetry in early modern Scotland, David Allan. Part II Texts: Allegory and reformation poetics in David Lindsay's Ane Satire of the Thrie Estaitis (1552-54), Amanda J. Piesse; John Knox and A Godly Letter: fashioning and refashioning the exilic 'I', Rudolph P. Almasy; Theological controversy in the wake of John Knox's The First Blast of the Trumpet, Kenneth D. Farrow; King James VI and I as a religious writer, Astrid Stilma; Calvinism, counter-Reformation and conversion: Alexander Montgomerie's religious poetry, Mark S. Sweetnam; English bards and Scotch poetics: Scotland's literary influence and 16th-century English religious verse, Deirdre Serjeantson; Hume of Godscroft on parity, David Reid. Part III Reception: Political theatre or heritage culture? Ane Satire of the Thrie Estaitis in production, Adrienne Scullion; A book for Lollards and Protestants: Murdoch Nisbet's New Testament, Martin Holt Dotterweich; A few concluding observations, David George Mullan; Index.