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Author:

McGrath, Patrick J., 1984- author.

Title:

Early modern asceticism : literature, religion, and austerity in the English Renaissance / Patrick J. McGrath.

Publisher:

University of Toronto Press,

Copyright Date:

2020

Description:

236 pages : illustration ; 24 cm

Subject:

1500-1700
Religion and literature--England--History--16th century.
Religion and literature--England--History--17th century.
English literature--Early modern, 1500-1700--History and criticism.
Asceticism in literature.
Spirituality in literature.
Asceticism in literature.
English literature--Early modern.
Religion and literature.
Spirituality in literature.
England.
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
History.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 199-226) and index.

Contents:

John Donne and Asceticism -- A Mask, Asceticism, and Caroline Culture -- The Virgin's Body and the National World in Lycidas -- Upon Appleton House and the Impossibility of Asceticism -- Self-Denial, Monasticism, and The Pilgrim's Progress.

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.

ISBN:

9781487505325
1487505329

OCLC:

(OCoLC)1089984339

Locations:

OVUX522 -- University of Iowa Libraries (Iowa City)