The Examinations of Anne Askew


Book Description

As a spiritual autobiography, historical document and carefully crafted polemic, Askew's narrative of her imprisonment for heresy and her interrogation by officials of church and state gives insight into Reformation politics and society in England.







The Examinations of Anne Askew


Book Description

In this vivid first person narrative, Anne Askew (1521-1546), a member of the Reformed church, records her imprisonment for heresy and her interrogation by officials of church and state in the last days of Henry VIII. She represents herself arguing forcefully, learnedly, and wittily with her accusers, pointing out their theological errors and refusing to be silent in public debate on religion. As a spiritual autobiography, a historical document, and a carefully crafted polemic, this work gives new insight into Reformation politics and society in England. After Askew was burned at the stake in 1546, her work was immediately published by John Bale who wove his own historical commentary with her text to "elucidate" her role as a Protestant martyr. Askew's work also exists in several early editions without Bale's commentary, most importantly in John Foxe's Arts and Monuments (1563). This volume includes two texts: the first edition of Askew's Examination's with Bale's Elucidation; and Foxe's edition, an uninterrupted version of her work. The latest addition to the Women Writers in English series, this book will have strong appeal for scholars and students of English Renaissance literature, Reformation history, and women's history.




Religion, Reform, and Women's Writing in Early Modern England


Book Description

Long considered marginal in early modern culture, women writers were actually central to the development of a Protestant literary tradition in England. Kimberly Anne Coles explores their contribution to this tradition through thorough archival research in publication history and book circulation; the interaction of women's texts with those written by men; and the traceable influence of women's writing upon other contemporary literary works. Focusing primarily upon Katherine Parr, Anne Askew, Mary Sidney Herbert, and Anne Vaughan Lok, Coles argues that the writings of these women were among the most popular and influential works of sixteenth-century England. This book is full of prevalent material and fresh analysis for scholars of early modern literature, culture and religious history.




John Foxe and His World


Book Description

Interest in John Foxe and his hugely influential text Acts and Monuments is particularly vibrant at present. This volume, the third to arise from a series of international colloquia on Foxe, collects essays by established and up-and-coming scholars. It broadly embraces five major areas of early modern studies: Roman Catholicism, women and gender, visual culture, the history of the book and historiography. Patrick Collinson provides an entire overview of the field of Foxe studies and further essays place Foxe and his work within the context of their times.




Kierkegaard's Writings, IX, Volume 9


Book Description

Prefaces was the last of four books by Søren Kierkegaard to appear within two weeks in June 1844. Three Upbuilding Discourses and Philosophical Fragments were published first, followed by The Concept of Anxiety and its companion--published on the same day--the comically ironic Prefaces. Presented as a set of prefaces without a book to follow, this work is a satire on literary life in nineteenth-century Copenhagen, a lampoon of Danish Hegelianism, and a prefiguring of Kierkegaard's final collision with Danish Christendom. Shortly after publishing Prefaces, Kierkegaard began to prepare Writing Sampler as a sequel. Writing Sampler considers the same themes taken up in Prefaces but in yet a more ironical and satirical vein. Although Writing Sampler remained unpublished during his lifetime, it is presented here as Kierkegaard originally envisioned it, in the company of Prefaces.




Eating and Ethics in Shakespeare's England


Book Description

David B. Goldstein argues for a new understanding of Renaissance England from the perspective of communal eating. Rather than focus on traditional models of interiority, choice and consumption, Goldstein demonstrates that eating offered a central paradigm for the ethics of community formation. The book examines how sharing food helps build, demarcate and destroy relationships – between eater and eaten, between self and other, and among different groups. Tracing these eating relations from 1547 to 1680 - through Shakespeare, Milton, religious writers and recipe book authors - Goldstein shows that to think about eating was to engage in complex reflections about the body's role in society. In the process, he radically rethinks the communal importance of the Protestant Eucharist. Combining historicist literary analysis with insights from social science and philosophy, the book's arguments reverberate well beyond the Renaissance. Ultimately, Eating and Ethics in Shakespeare's England forces us to rethink our own relationship to food.




Five Women of the English Reformation


Book Description

Books on the history of the Reformation are filled with the heroic struggles and sacrifices of men. But this compelling volume puts the spotlight on five strong and intellectually gifted women who, because of their absolute and unconditional commitment to the advancement of Protestant Christianity, paid the cost of their reforming convictions with martyrdom, imprisonment, and exile. Anne Boleyn (1507-1536) introduced the Reformation to England, and Katharine Parr (1514-1548) saved it. Both women were riveted by early versions of the "justification by faith" doctrine that originated with Martin Luther and came to them through France. As a result, Anne Boleyn was beheaded. Katharine Parr narrowly avoided the same fate. Sixteen-year-old Jane Grey (1537-1554) and Anne Askew (1521-1546) both dared to criticize the Mass and were pioneers of Protestant views concerning superstition and symbols. Jane Grey was executed because of her Protestantism. Anne Askew was tortured and burned at the stake. Catherine Willoughby (1520-1580) anticipated later Puritan teachings on predestination and election and on the reformation of the church. She was forced to give up everything she had and to flee with her husband and nursing baby into exile. Paul Zahl vividly tells the stories of these five mothers of the English Reformation. All of these women were powerful theologians intensely interested in the religious concerns of their day. All but Anne Boleyn left behind a considerable body of written work - some of which is found in this book's appendices. It is the theological aspect of these women's remarkable achievements that Zahl seeks to underscore. Moreover, he also considers what the stories of these women have to say about the relation of gender to theology, human motivation, and God. An important epilogue by Mary Zahl contributes a contemporary woman's view of these fascinating historical figures. Extraordinary by any standard, Anne Boleyn, Anne Askew, Katharine Parr, Jane Grey, and Catherine Willoughby remain rich subjects for reflection and emulation hundreds of years later. The personalities of these five women, who spoke their Christian convictions with presence of mind and sharp intelligence within situations of life-and-death duress, are almost totemic in our enduring search for role models.




Women Writers in Renaissance England


Book Description

Of all the new developments in literary theory, feminism has proved to be the most widely influential, leading to an expansion of the traditional English canon in all periods of study. This book aims to make the work of Renaissance women writers in English better known to general and academic readers so as to strengthen the case for their future inclusion in the Renaissance literary canon. This lively book surveys women writers in the sixteenth century and early seventeenth centuries. Its selection is vast, historically representative, and original, taking examples from twenty different, relatively unknown authors in all genres of writing, including poetry, fiction, religious works, letters and journals, translation, and books on childcare. It establishes new contexts for the debate about women as writers within the period and suggests potential intertextual connections with works by well-known male authors of the same time. Individual authors and works are given concise introductions, with both modern and historical critical analysis, setting them in a theoretical and historicised context. All texts are made readily accessible through modern spelling and punctuation, on-the-page annotation and headnotes. The substantial, up-to-date bibliography provides a source for further study and research.




Heresy Trials and English Women Writers, 1400-1670


Book Description

By analyzing the interrogations of Margery Kempe, Anne Askew, Marian Protestant women, Margaret Clitherow and Quaker women, Genelle Gertz examines the complex dynamics of women's writing, preaching and authorship under religious persecution and censorship and uncovers unexpected connections between the writings of women on trial for their religious beliefs.