Biblical Readings and Literary Writings in Early Modern England, 1558-1625

Tanner J. Moore, Purdue University, Anglican and Episcopal History ...is a convincingly argued and well--written work that shows the penneance of the Bible onto the literary culture of Early Modern England as well as the complexities in its interpretation that still resonate and exist in our literary classics today.

Ezra Horbury, University College London, Modern Language Review This adaptation of Victoria Brownlee's doctoral thesis provides a fresh addition to the recent trend of literary and historicist evaluations of the Bible's role in early modern England, devoting much-needed attention to reading practices and hermeneutics...The book combines a meticulous knowledge of existing scholarship (the vigour of Brownlee's footnotes deserves its own commendation) with many vibrant close readings of overlooked texts, and it will no doubt prove a boon to any scholar of early modern religious culture.

Margaret Christian, Spenser Review This book is welcome: it is a well-grounded, thoroughly researched look at literary works through the lens of biblical typology. ... we owe Brownlee a debt of gratitude for deepening our acquaintance with several less-familiar literary works and convincing us anew of the centrality of biblical modes of interpretation to the authors of this period.

New Books Network an exciting new contribution to discussions of early modern religion and literature... Biblical Readings and Literary Writings in Early Modern England, 1558-1625 offers an illuminating account of how, why, when, where and by whom Bibles were read in early modern England, as well as a series of case studies of particular characters or passages in the Old and New Testaments.

Victoria Brownlee is a Lecturer in English at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Prior to this, she held an Irish Research Council early career fellowship at University College Dublin. Dr Brownlee is co-editor of Biblical Women in Early Modern Literary Culture, 1550-1700 (Manchester University Press, 2015), and has published on women's writing and apocalypse. Her research interests focus on the early modern Bible and religious and devotional literature.

Introduction 1: 'The engrafted word': Reading and Receiving the Scriptures in Early Modern England 2: 'Our King Salomon': Biblical Typology and the Kingship of Solomon in Tudor and Stuart England 3: A Tale of Two Jobs: Reading Suffering, Providence, and Restoration in King Leir and King Lear 4: 'By moste sweete and comfortable allegories': Locating Spiritual Significance in the Song of Songs 5: Typologies of Marian Maternity: Literal and Spiritual Birth in Seventeenth-Century Women's Writing 6: Reading Revelations: Figuring the End in Post-Reformation Literary Culture