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Psalm Culture and Early Modern English Literature
Examining the influence of the biblical Psalms on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English literature, this study explores the imaginative, beautiful and ingenious as well as sometimes ludicrous and improbable ways in which the Psalms were 'translated'. Spanning ancient Israel to Renaissance and Reformation England, the book focuses on literature of major writers that ranges from Shakespeare and Milton to less prominent ones: George Gascoigne, Mary Sidney Herbert, and George Wither.
304 pages, Paperback
First published February 23, 2004
About the author
Hannibal Hamlin
25 booksHannibal Hamlin was the 15th Vice President of the United States, serving under President Abraham Lincoln.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 15, 2018
The bible shaped our culture and the psalms our poetics and literature.
“The Earl of Surrey and Richard Stanyhurst translated Virgil’s Aeneid ; Arthur Golding and George Sandys translated Ovid’s Metamorphoses; but all for translated the Psalms, as did John Milton, Sir Philip Sydney, the Countess of Pembroke, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Sir Francis Bacon, Henry Vaughan, Phineas Fletcher, and Richard Crashaw. Virtually every author of the period (Shakespeare, Spencer, Bunyan, Donne, Herbert, and Jonson) translated paraphrased, or alluded to the Psalms in their major works. In fact, the translation, or “Englishing,” of the biblical Psalms substantially shaped the culture of sixteenth- and seventeenth- century England, resulting in creative forms as diverse as singing psalms, metrical psalms, paraphrases, sophisticated poetic adaptations, meditations, sermons , commentaries and significant allusions in poems, plays, and literary prose, by English men and women of varied social and intellectual backgrounds, accommodating the biblical text to their personal agendas, whether religious, political, or aesthetic.”
Hannibal Hamlin: “Psalm culture and early modern English literature.” 1
“The Earl of Surrey and Richard Stanyhurst translated Virgil’s Aeneid ; Arthur Golding and George Sandys translated Ovid’s Metamorphoses; but all for translated the Psalms, as did John Milton, Sir Philip Sydney, the Countess of Pembroke, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Sir Francis Bacon, Henry Vaughan, Phineas Fletcher, and Richard Crashaw. Virtually every author of the period (Shakespeare, Spencer, Bunyan, Donne, Herbert, and Jonson) translated paraphrased, or alluded to the Psalms in their major works. In fact, the translation, or “Englishing,” of the biblical Psalms substantially shaped the culture of sixteenth- and seventeenth- century England, resulting in creative forms as diverse as singing psalms, metrical psalms, paraphrases, sophisticated poetic adaptations, meditations, sermons , commentaries and significant allusions in poems, plays, and literary prose, by English men and women of varied social and intellectual backgrounds, accommodating the biblical text to their personal agendas, whether religious, political, or aesthetic.”
Hannibal Hamlin: “Psalm culture and early modern English literature.” 1
October 11, 2022
cannibalised the relevant 100 pages or so but this is good stuff, overly comprehensive if anything for my limited purposes
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews