LEADER 05179nam 22006133 450 001 9910861060603321 005 20231105051337.0 010 $a9780817394486$b(electronic bk.) 010 $z9780817361112 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC30394329 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL30394329 035 $a(OCoLC)1380993398 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)musev2_102889 035 $a(EXLCZ)9926793787100041 100 $a20230601d2023 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcnu|||||||| 181 $ctxt$2rdacontent 182 $cc$2rdamedia 183 $acr$2rdacarrier 200 10$aBold Conscience $eLuther to Shakespeare to Milton 205 $a1st ed. 210 1$aTuscaloosa :$cUniversity of Alabama Press,$d2023. 210 4$dİ2023. 215 $a1 online resource (249 pages) 225 1 $aStrode Studies in Early Modern Literature and Culture Series 311 08$aPrint version: Held, Joshua R. Bold Conscience Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press,c2023 9780817361112 327 $aConscience in Luther and Henry VIII -- Shakespearean consciences : Hamlet in Wittenberg -- More Shakespearean consciences : looking back at Henry VIII's conscience -- Supporting conscience in Donne's sermons -- The toleration crisis of 1644 -- Contesting conscience in Eikon Basilike and Eikonoklastes -- Revising conscience in Paradise lost. 330 $a"'Bold Conscience' chronicles the shifting conception of conscience in early modern England, as it evolved from a faculty of restraint--what the author labels "cowardly conscience"--to one of bold and forthright self-assertion. Caught at the vortex of public and private concerns, the concept of the conscience played an important role in post-Reformation England, from clerical leaders on down to laymen, not least because of its central place in determining loyalties during the English Civil War and the consequent regicide of King Charles I. Yet within this mix of perspectives, the most sinuous, complex, and ultimately lasting perspectives on bold conscience emerge from deliberately literary, rhetorically artistic voices--Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton. Joshua Held argues that literary texts by these authors, in re-casting the idea of conscience as a private, interior, shameful state to one of boldness fit for the public realm, parallel a historical development in which the conscience becomes a platform both for royal power and for common dissent in post-Reformation England. With the 1649 regicide of King Charles I as a fulcrum that unites both literary and historical timelines, Held tracks the increasing power of the conscience from William Shakespeare's Hamlet and Henry VIII to John Donne's court sermons, and finally to Milton's Areopagitica and Charles's defense of his kingship, Eikon Basilike. In a direct attack on Eikon Basilike, Milton destroys the prerogative of the royal conscience in Eikonoklastes, and later in Paradise Lost proposes an alternative basis for inner confidence, rooting it not in divine right but in the 'paradise within,' a metonym for conscience. Applying a fine-grain literary analysis to literary England from about 1601 to 1667, this study looks backward as well to the theological foundations of the concept in Luther of the 1520s and forward to its transformation by Locke into the term 'consciousness' in 1689. Ultimately, Held's study shows how the idea of a conscience in early modern England, long central to the private self and linked to the will, memory, and mind-emerges as a nexus between the private self and the realm of public action, a bulwark against absolute sovereignty, and its attenuation as a means of more limited, personal certainty. Whether in Milton's struggle against King Charles or Hamlet's against King Claudius, the conscience born of the Reformation becomes less a state of inner critique and more a form of outward expression fit for the communal life and commitments demanded by the early modern era"--$cProvided by publisher. 410 0$aStrode Studies in Early Modern Literature and Culture Series 606 $aEnglish literature$yEarly modern, 1500-1700$xHistory and criticism 606 $aConscience in literature 606 $aPolitics and literature$zGreat Britain$xHistory$y17th century 606 $aPolitics and literature$zGreat Britain$xHistory$y16th century 606 $aChristianity and politics$xHistory$y17th century 606 $aChristianity and politics$xHistory$y16th century 606 $aConscience$xReligious aspects$xChristianity 607 $aGreat Britain$2fast 608 $aLiterary criticism.$2lcgft 615 0$aEnglish literature$xHistory and criticism. 615 0$aConscience in literature. 615 0$aPolitics and literature$xHistory 615 0$aPolitics and literature$xHistory 615 0$aChristianity and politics$xHistory 615 0$aChristianity and politics$xHistory 615 0$aConscience$xReligious aspects$xChristianity. 676 $a820.9/35309032 700 $aHeld$b Joshua R$01741115 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 912 $a9910861060603321 996 $aBold Conscience$94167104 997 $aUNINA