Famed for his heart-searching devotional lyric poetry, George Herbert (1593-1633) also authored some of the finest and most influential English prose of his era: The Countrey Parson, his oft-cited pastoral manual, still valued for its spiritual insight, shrewd advice, and a style at once lively and refined, engaging and serious; A Treatise of Temperance and Sobrietie, his translation of Luigi Cornaro's jovial Italian tract on dietary health; Notes on Valdesso, his judicious and appreciative commentary (and sole theological work) on the Considerations of controversial Spanish humanist Juan de Valdés; his collections of Outlandish Proverbs and Jacula Prudentum, pervasively popular for centuries and shot through with familiar wisdom and wit; his Letters, providing the most intimate records of and reflections on his brief life; and his Will, dictated and witnessed as he lay dying of tuberculosis in his Bemerton rectory at the age of 39. Each of these works, frequently cited as contexts for his renowned English poetry, appears here for close study in its own right. Volume I: English Prose offers textual and critical introductions and annotations, a concise title essay and overview of prominent criticism for each chapter or section in subdivided works, and, above all, rigorous scholarly texts based on the earliest and best manuscript and print sources--some newly discovered or confirmed. Serious literary art by any measure, Herbert's English prose has emerged in recent years from the shadow of his rightly famous poetry. Such attention stands here fully justified: an edition whose accessible texts, combined with extensive and meticulous critical apparatus, will equip scholars for new discoveries and accelerate the already global interest in Herbert's work.

George Herbert - poet, orator, and preacher - was formed, enchanted, and yet ultimately disappointed by rhetoric. In this first book-length study of his complicated relationship with the discipline, nineteen chapters by leading Herbert scholars examine his achievements and continuing legacies, filling gaps and looking beyond critical commonplaces about his 'paradoxical' or 'self-consuming' relationship with language to the personal, institutional, religious, philosophical and political contexts of that relationship. The resulting collection interweaves Herbert studies with the latest scholarship on rhetoric's foundational importance to Renaissance humanism, to the biblical culture of post-Reformation England, and to early modern literature. This is a thoroughgoing reappraisal of Herbert's rhetorical art, placing one of early Stuart England's most sumptuous - and yet one of its plainest - writers at the centre of debate over Renaissance eloquence.

George Herbert - poet, orator, and preacher - was formed, enchanted, and yet ultimately disappointed by rhetoric. In this first book-length study of his complicated relationship with the discipline, nineteen chapters by leading Herbert scholars examine his achievements and continuing legacies, filling gaps and looking beyond critical commonplaces about his 'paradoxical' or 'self-consuming' relationship with language to the personal, institutional, religious, philosophical and political contexts of that relationship. The resulting collection interweaves Herbert studies with the latest scholarship on rhetoric's foundational importance to Renaissance humanism, to the biblical culture of post-Reformation England, and to early modern literature. This is a thoroughgoing reappraisal of Herbert's rhetorical art, placing one of early Stuart England's most sumptuous - and yet one of its plainest - writers at the centre of debate over Renaissance eloquence.

The most comprehensive and accessible introduction to scriptural art yet written 

Literary Study of the Bible: An Introduction approaches each book of the Bible (including several of the apocrypha) with non-sectarian literary questions, exploring the meanings that the Bible reveals when we read it like a poem, narrative, or play. As a unique hybrid of introductory guide, essential handbook, historical survey, and absorbing commentary, this book fills a gap in literary Bible study with its fresh perspectives on the biblical writers’ many arts. Readers will engage in wide range of textual approaches and interpretive traditions through this broadly informed, accessibly written text.

Dr. Christopher Hodgkins has taught Literary Study of the Bible for 25 years, over which time he has field-tested the many lenses—of genre, image, language, characterization, plot, and craft—used throughout this book. Tracing the sources, composition, and influences of the Biblical text, this book places the Bible in a tradition of ancient near eastern, Hebrew, and Hellenistic literary art, giving new depth to the way we understand the familiar stories of scripture. Unlike other literary introductions to the Bible, this book uniquely combines these elements:

Approaches the Bible as a richly collaborative and coherent work of literary art, exploring how earlier books influence the creation and interpretation of later ones Provides illuminating commentary supplemented by explanatory textboxes, maps, illustrations, and study questions to enhance interest and expand learning Introduces poetic and narrative devices like doubling, juxtaposition, and irony within the context of scriptural art and editorial design Gives extensive attention to each biblical book, resulting in the most comprehensive introduction to literary Bible study to date Presents these materials through an accessible and lively text permeated with references to both high and popular culture

Literary Study of the Bible will be a welcome addition to personal, school, college, and congregational libraries, as well as an excellent text for students of the Bible in both secular and faith-based settings. 

The most comprehensive and accessible introduction to scriptural art yet written 

Literary Study of the Bible: An Introduction approaches each book of the Bible (including several of the apocrypha) with non-sectarian literary questions, exploring the meanings that the Bible reveals when we read it like a poem, narrative, or play. As a unique hybrid of introductory guide, essential handbook, historical survey, and absorbing commentary, this book fills a gap in literary Bible study with its fresh perspectives on the biblical writers’ many arts. Readers will engage in wide range of textual approaches and interpretive traditions through this broadly informed, accessibly written text.

Dr. Christopher Hodgkins has taught Literary Study of the Bible for 25 years, over which time he has field-tested the many lenses—of genre, image, language, characterization, plot, and craft—used throughout this book. Tracing the sources, composition, and influences of the Biblical text, this book places the Bible in a tradition of ancient near eastern, Hebrew, and Hellenistic literary art, giving new depth to the way we understand the familiar stories of scripture. Unlike other literary introductions to the Bible, this book uniquely combines these elements:

Approaches the Bible as a richly collaborative and coherent work of literary art, exploring how earlier books influence the creation and interpretation of later ones Provides illuminating commentary supplemented by explanatory textboxes, maps, illustrations, and study questions to enhance interest and expand learning Introduces poetic and narrative devices like doubling, juxtaposition, and irony within the context of scriptural art and editorial design Gives extensive attention to each biblical book, resulting in the most comprehensive introduction to literary Bible study to date Presents these materials through an accessible and lively text permeated with references to both high and popular culture

Literary Study of the Bible will be a welcome addition to personal, school, college, and congregational libraries, as well as an excellent text for students of the Bible in both secular and faith-based settings. 

The most comprehensive and accessible introduction to scriptural art yet written Literary Study of the Bible: An Introduction approaches each book of the Bible (including several of the apocrypha) with non-sectarian literary questions, exploring the meanings that the Bible reveals when we read it like a poem, narrative, or play. As a unique hybrid of introductory guide, essential handbook, historical survey, and absorbing commentary, this book fills a gap in literary Bible study with its fresh perspectives on the biblical writers’ many arts. Readers will engage in wide range of textual approaches and interpretive traditions through this broadly informed, accessibly written text.Dr. Christopher Hodgkins has taught Literary Study of the Bible for 25 years, over which time he has field-tested the many lenses—of genre, image, language, characterization, plot, and craft—used throughout this book. Tracing the sources, composition, and influences of the Biblical text, this book places the Bible in a tradition of ancient near eastern, Hebrew, and Hellenistic literary art, giving new depth to the way we understand the familiar stories of scripture. Unlike other literary introductions to the Bible, this book uniquely combines these elements: Approaches the Bible as a richly collaborative and coherent work of literary art, exploring how earlier books influence the creation and interpretation of later onesProvides illuminating commentary supplemented by explanatory textboxes, maps, illustrations, and study questions to enhance interest and expand learningIntroduces poetic and narrative devices like doubling, juxtaposition, and irony within the context of scriptural art and editorial designGives extensive attention to each biblical book, resulting in the most comprehensive introduction to literary Bible study to datePresents these materials through an accessible and lively text permeated with references to both high and popular cultureLiterary Study of the Bible will be a welcome addition to personal, school, college, and congregational libraries, as well as an excellent text for students of the Bible in both secular and faith-based settings.

Famed for his heart-searching devotional lyric poetry, George Herbert (1593-1633) also authored some of the finest and most influential English prose of his era: The Countrey Parson, his oft-cited pastoral manual, still valued for its spiritual insight, shrewd advice, and a style at once lively and refined, engaging and serious; A Treatise of Temperance and Sobrietie, his translation of Luigi Cornaro's jovial Italian tract on dietary health; Notes on Valdesso, his judicious and appreciative commentary (and sole theological work) on the Considerations of controversial Spanish humanist Juan de Valdés; his collections of Outlandish Proverbs and Jacula Prudentum, pervasively popular for centuries and shot through with familiar wisdom and wit; his Letters, providing the most intimate records of and reflections on his brief life; and his Will, dictated and witnessed as he lay dying of tuberculosis in his Bemerton rectory at the age of 39. Each of these works, frequently cited as contexts for his renowned English poetry, appears here for close study in its own right. Volume I: English Prose offers textual and critical introductions and annotations, a concise title essay and overview of prominent criticism for each chapter or section in subdivided works, and, above all, rigorous scholarly texts based on the earliest and best manuscript and print sources--some newly discovered or confirmed. Serious literary art by any measure, Herbert's English prose has emerged in recent years from the shadow of his rightly famous poetry. Such attention stands here fully justified: an edition whose accessible texts, combined with extensive and meticulous critical apparatus, will equip scholars for new discoveries and accelerate the already global interest in Herbert's work.

George Herbert - poet, orator, and preacher - was formed, enchanted, and yet ultimately disappointed by rhetoric. In this first book-length study of his complicated relationship with the discipline, nineteen chapters by leading Herbert scholars examine his achievements and continuing legacies, filling gaps and looking beyond critical commonplaces about his 'paradoxical' or 'self-consuming' relationship with language to the personal, institutional, religious, philosophical and political contexts of that relationship. The resulting collection interweaves Herbert studies with the latest scholarship on rhetoric's foundational importance to Renaissance humanism, to the biblical culture of post-Reformation England, and to early modern literature. This is a thoroughgoing reappraisal of Herbert's rhetorical art, placing one of early Stuart England's most sumptuous - and yet one of its plainest - writers at the centre of debate over Renaissance eloquence.

George Herbert - poet, orator, and preacher - was formed, enchanted, and yet ultimately disappointed by rhetoric. In this first book-length study of his complicated relationship with the discipline, nineteen chapters by leading Herbert scholars examine his achievements and continuing legacies, filling gaps and looking beyond critical commonplaces about his 'paradoxical' or 'self-consuming' relationship with language to the personal, institutional, religious, philosophical and political contexts of that relationship. The resulting collection interweaves Herbert studies with the latest scholarship on rhetoric's foundational importance to Renaissance humanism, to the biblical culture of post-Reformation England, and to early modern literature. This is a thoroughgoing reappraisal of Herbert's rhetorical art, placing one of early Stuart England's most sumptuous - and yet one of its plainest - writers at the centre of debate over Renaissance eloquence.

The most comprehensive and accessible introduction to scriptural art yet written 

Literary Study of the Bible: An Introduction approaches each book of the Bible (including several of the apocrypha) with non-sectarian literary questions, exploring the meanings that the Bible reveals when we read it like a poem, narrative, or play. As a unique hybrid of introductory guide, essential handbook, historical survey, and absorbing commentary, this book fills a gap in literary Bible study with its fresh perspectives on the biblical writers’ many arts. Readers will engage in wide range of textual approaches and interpretive traditions through this broadly informed, accessibly written text.

Dr. Christopher Hodgkins has taught Literary Study of the Bible for 25 years, over which time he has field-tested the many lenses—of genre, image, language, characterization, plot, and craft—used throughout this book. Tracing the sources, composition, and influences of the Biblical text, this book places the Bible in a tradition of ancient near eastern, Hebrew, and Hellenistic literary art, giving new depth to the way we understand the familiar stories of scripture. Unlike other literary introductions to the Bible, this book uniquely combines these elements:

Approaches the Bible as a richly collaborative and coherent work of literary art, exploring how earlier books influence the creation and interpretation of later ones Provides illuminating commentary supplemented by explanatory textboxes, maps, illustrations, and study questions to enhance interest and expand learning Introduces poetic and narrative devices like doubling, juxtaposition, and irony within the context of scriptural art and editorial design Gives extensive attention to each biblical book, resulting in the most comprehensive introduction to literary Bible study to date Presents these materials through an accessible and lively text permeated with references to both high and popular culture

Literary Study of the Bible will be a welcome addition to personal, school, college, and congregational libraries, as well as an excellent text for students of the Bible in both secular and faith-based settings. 

The most comprehensive and accessible introduction to scriptural art yet written 

Literary Study of the Bible: An Introduction approaches each book of the Bible (including several of the apocrypha) with non-sectarian literary questions, exploring the meanings that the Bible reveals when we read it like a poem, narrative, or play. As a unique hybrid of introductory guide, essential handbook, historical survey, and absorbing commentary, this book fills a gap in literary Bible study with its fresh perspectives on the biblical writers’ many arts. Readers will engage in wide range of textual approaches and interpretive traditions through this broadly informed, accessibly written text.

Dr. Christopher Hodgkins has taught Literary Study of the Bible for 25 years, over which time he has field-tested the many lenses—of genre, image, language, characterization, plot, and craft—used throughout this book. Tracing the sources, composition, and influences of the Biblical text, this book places the Bible in a tradition of ancient near eastern, Hebrew, and Hellenistic literary art, giving new depth to the way we understand the familiar stories of scripture. Unlike other literary introductions to the Bible, this book uniquely combines these elements:

Approaches the Bible as a richly collaborative and coherent work of literary art, exploring how earlier books influence the creation and interpretation of later ones Provides illuminating commentary supplemented by explanatory textboxes, maps, illustrations, and study questions to enhance interest and expand learning Introduces poetic and narrative devices like doubling, juxtaposition, and irony within the context of scriptural art and editorial design Gives extensive attention to each biblical book, resulting in the most comprehensive introduction to literary Bible study to date Presents these materials through an accessible and lively text permeated with references to both high and popular culture

Literary Study of the Bible will be a welcome addition to personal, school, college, and congregational libraries, as well as an excellent text for students of the Bible in both secular and faith-based settings. 

The most comprehensive and accessible introduction to scriptural art yet written Literary Study of the Bible: An Introduction approaches each book of the Bible (including several of the apocrypha) with non-sectarian literary questions, exploring the meanings that the Bible reveals when we read it like a poem, narrative, or play. As a unique hybrid of introductory guide, essential handbook, historical survey, and absorbing commentary, this book fills a gap in literary Bible study with its fresh perspectives on the biblical writers’ many arts. Readers will engage in wide range of textual approaches and interpretive traditions through this broadly informed, accessibly written text.Dr. Christopher Hodgkins has taught Literary Study of the Bible for 25 years, over which time he has field-tested the many lenses—of genre, image, language, characterization, plot, and craft—used throughout this book. Tracing the sources, composition, and influences of the Biblical text, this book places the Bible in a tradition of ancient near eastern, Hebrew, and Hellenistic literary art, giving new depth to the way we understand the familiar stories of scripture. Unlike other literary introductions to the Bible, this book uniquely combines these elements: Approaches the Bible as a richly collaborative and coherent work of literary art, exploring how earlier books influence the creation and interpretation of later onesProvides illuminating commentary supplemented by explanatory textboxes, maps, illustrations, and study questions to enhance interest and expand learningIntroduces poetic and narrative devices like doubling, juxtaposition, and irony within the context of scriptural art and editorial designGives extensive attention to each biblical book, resulting in the most comprehensive introduction to literary Bible study to datePresents these materials through an accessible and lively text permeated with references to both high and popular cultureLiterary Study of the Bible will be a welcome addition to personal, school, college, and congregational libraries, as well as an excellent text for students of the Bible in both secular and faith-based settings.