Voices of the English Reformation: A Sourcebook

Spanning the different phases of the English Reformation from William Tyndale's 1525 translation of the Bible to the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, John King's magisterial anthology brings together a range of texts inaccessible in standard collections of early modern works. The readings demonstrate how Reformation ideas and concerns pervade well-known writings by Spenser, Shakespeare, Sidney, and Marlowe and help foreground such issues as the relationship between church and state, the status of women, and resistance to unjust authority.

Plays, dialogues, and satires in which clever laypersons outwit ignorant clerics counterbalance texts documenting the controversy over the permissibility of theatrical performance. Moving biographical and autobiographical narratives from John Foxe's Book of Martyrs and other sources document the experience of Protestants such as Anne Askew and Hugh Latimer, both burned at the stake, of recusants, Jesuit missionaries, and many others. In this splendid collection, the voices ring forth from a unique moment when the course of British history was altered by the fate and religious convictions of the five queens: Catherine Parr, Lady Jane Grey, Mary I, Mary Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth I.

Author: John N. King
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 09/03/2004
Pages: 394
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.30lbs
Size: 9.20h x 5.80w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780812218770

Review Citation(s):
Choice 04/01/2005 pg. 1383

About the Author
John N. King is Distinguished University Professor, and Humanities Distinguished Professor of English and of Religious Studies, The Ohio State University. He is author of English Reformation Literature, Tudor Royal Iconography, Spenser's Poetry and the Reformation Tradition, and Milton and Religious Controversy.