C. S. Lewis. English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, excluding Drama (Oxford History of English Literature). Oxford, At the Clarendon Press, 1954. vi+696 pp. $7.

1955 ◽  
Vol 8 (1-Part1) ◽  
pp. 19-22
Author(s):  
Leicester Bradner
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
English Literature ◽  
History Of

A Definition of Petrarchismo

PMLA ◽  
1909 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 699-710 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Berdan
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Dramatic Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of

While the origin, sources, and evolution of the drama of the sixteenth century have been elaborately studied, curiously enough the non-dramatic literature of the period has suffered from comparative neglect. Monographs on single authors, studies on English literature alone, in many cases have erred thru false perspective. Thus, altho the time is not yet ripe for the general history of the sonnet, desired by M. Vaganay, it may be profitable briefly to consider English literature, in one of its phases, in relation to the great movement of which it was a part.

Patterns of Stoicism in Thought and Prose Styles, 1530–1700

PMLA ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 85 (5) ◽  
pp. 1023-1034 ◽  
Author(s):  
Earl Miner
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
English Literature ◽  
English Prose ◽  
Prose Style ◽  
History Of ◽  
De Officiis

Numerous writings (especially by Morris W. Croll and George Williamson) have propounded the theory that a late sixteenth-century revival of Stoicism marked English thought and prose styles, replacing Cicero in popularity, that such Stoicism came to a climax in the period from about 1580 to 1630, and that Stoicism waned thereafter in the seventeenth century. The theory is disproved by the pattern of English publication of Stoic and neo-Stoic writers, and Cicero between 1530 and 1700. The important Stoic writers were more popular in the Restoration than before and little popular in the period from 1580 to 1630. Scholars of English literature have been misled by possible continental developments behind which England lagged and by insufficient exactness in understanding classical writers and thought. Seneca's style is said to be Asiatic rather than Attic, and Cicero is Stoic in such works as De Officiis. This one Ciceronian work was more popular in England than the total canon of Seneca. The evidence shows that an altogether new account is required for the history of neo-Stoicism in English thought and prose style, as well as of the development of English prose styles.

The Purpose of Tocqueville’s Democracy

1986 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-75
Author(s):  
Edward T. Gargan
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
New World ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Collective Consciousness ◽  
Geographic Knowledge ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Europe ◽  
The Impact

C. S. Lewis. (he brilliant and graceful historian of sixteenth-century English literature, summarizing the impact on Europe of the discovery of America, observed: “The existence of America was one of the greatest disappointments in the history of Europe.” Lewis was referring to Europe’s unfulfilled expectations that the winds and currents of the Atlantic would bring her bankers, merchants, soldiers, and priests to the Orient. This disillusionment was, however, less significant than other negative reactions that accompanied Columbus’s news. Renaissance Europe was forced, not without reluctance, to rethink its own place in history, its philosophy, theology, anthropology, linguistic theories, geographic knowledge. When the Renaissance got down to the task of comprehending the explosive announcement, and Europe’s writers, commentators, and observers employed what John H. Elliott has called a “selective eye” and not Ruskin’s “innocent eye.” From this vision classical antiquity, Christian tradition, humanist aspirations, and the politics of Europe determined what would be seen when Europe encountered the New World; what would be admitted into the collective consciousness of scholars, clerics, popes, adventurers, and poets. Pride, the not so hidden inflexibility at the heart of Renaissance civilization, framed and fixed what America would be permitted to mean.

The Fabrication of the Myth of Father Parsons

1994 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Houliston
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Fellow Traveller ◽  
History Of

‘Father Persons’ has long been a legendary figure of controversy. We cannot even agree on the spelling of his name. Most of his contemporaries called him Parsons, especially if they were hostile, but his correspondence and other manuscript evidence make it quite clear he preferred Persons. The variant spellings would not affect the pronunciation of his name, but ‘Parsons’ is a reminder of the rumour that he was the bastard son of a Somerset parson. Parsons or Persons, he was notorious in his day as a traitorous plotter and irrepressible controversialist, but today he is virtually ignored by literary scholars. The story is told of a meeting in 1954, on a train from Cambridge to Oxford, between C. S. Lewis and A. L. Rowse. Rowse congratulated his fellow-traveller on the recent publication of his History of English Literature in the Sixteenth Century—a work that itself was to become, for other reasons, the centre of controversy—pausing only to register some surprise at his treatment of prose: ‘You praise Cardinal Allen, who is really negligible and wrote very little, but you do not even mention Robert Parsons, the Jesuit who wrote over thirty books and was one of the most considerable prose writers of the Elizabethan period. Why?’ To this piece of donnish one-upmanship, Lewis bluffed: ‘I did not think he was important enough to be included.’ He hadn't read Persons.

The Book of Common Prayer: A Guide

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Hefling
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
The United States ◽  
History Of The Book ◽  
Book Of Common Prayer ◽  
Prayer Book ◽  
Corporate Worship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Common Prayer ◽  
The Church

This book surveys the contents and the history of the Book of Common Prayer, a sacred text which has been a foundational document of the Church of England and the other churches in the worldwide community of Anglican Christianity. The Prayer Book is primarily a liturgical text—a set of scripts for enacting events of corporate worship. As such it is at once a standard of theological doctrine and an expression of spirituality. The first part of this survey begins with an examination of one Prayer Book liturgy, known as Divine Service, in some detail. Also discussed are the rites for weddings, ordinations, and funerals and for the sacraments of Baptism and Communion. The second part considers the original version of the Book of Common Prayer in the context of the sixteenth-century Reformation, then as revised and built into the Elizabethan settlement of religion in England. Later chapters discuss the reception, revision, rejection, and restoration of the Prayer Book during its first hundred years. The establishment of the text in its classical form in 1662 was followed by a “golden age” in the eighteenth century, which included the emergence of a modified version in the United States. The narrative concludes with a chapter on the displacement of the Book of Common Prayer as a norm of Anglican identity. Two specialized chapters concentrate on the Prayer Book as a visible artifact and as a text set to music.

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