Biblical women in early modern literary culture, 1550–1700

At once pervasive and marginal, appealing and repellent, exemplary and atypical, the women of the Bible provoke an assortment of readings across early modern literature. Biblical women in early modern literary culture, 1550–1700 draws attention to the complex ways in which biblical women’s narratives could be reimagined for a variety of rhetorical and religious purposes. Considering a confessionally diverse range of writers, working across a variety of genres, this volume reveals how women from the Old and New Testaments exhibit an ideological power that frequently exceeds, both in scope and substance, their associated scriptural records. The essays explore how the Bible’s women are fluidly negotiated and diversely redeployed to offer (conflicting) comment on issues including female authority, speech and sexuality, and in discussions of doctrine, confessional politics, exploration and grief. As it explores the rich ideological currency of the Bible’s women in early modern culture, this volume demonstrates that the Bible’s women are persistently difficult to evade. This volume of essays explores how the Bible's women were read, appropriated and debated in early modern literary culture. Addressing a confessionally diverse range of writers who employ a variety of genres, this volume considers how Old and New Testament women provoke an assortment of readings that frequently exceed, both in scope and substance, their associated scriptural records. The contributors to this volume trace how the scriptural accounts of the Bible's female figures are not nearly reproduced by early modern writers but are edited, amended and reconfigured for a variety of rhetorical and religious purposes. Biblical women in early modern literary culture 1550-1700 demonstrates that there is little uniformity in early modern interpretations of the lives of the Bible's women; instead, their narratives are fluidly negotiated and diversely redeployed to offer (conflicting) comments on issues including female authority, women's speech, motherhood and sexuality. But the invocation of the Bible's women in these gendered debates sits, many contributors suggest, alongside their deployment in discourses on monarchy and doctrine, discussions of travel and grief, and disputes over confessional politics. As each essay focuses on early modern readings of a particular biblical woman, or archetype of biblical femininity, the volume as a whole illuminates how the Bible's women resonated with mothers and political theorists, dramatists and clergy, and poets and conduct writers. In doing so, this volume demonstrates the rich ideological currency of biblical women's names, images and narratives across early modern literary culture. Book jacket Introduction: Discovering Biblical Women In Early Modern Literary Culture / By Victoria Brownlee And Laura Gallagher Part I: Women And Feminine Archetypes Of The Old Testament 2. Overview: Reading Old Testament Women In Early Modern England, 1550-1700 / By Victoria Brownlee And Laura Gallagher 3. A 'paraditian Creature': Eve And Her Unsuspecting Garden In Seventeenth Century Literature / By Elizabeth Hodgson 4. Christian Liberty And Female Rule: Exegesis And Political Controversy In The 1550s / By Adrian Streete 5. Wives, Fears And Foreskins: Early Modern Reproach Of Zipporah And Michal / By Michele Osherow 6. The Politics Of Female Supplication In The Book Of Esther / By Alison Thorne 7. Gender And The Inculcation Of Virtue: The Book Of Proverbs In Action / By Danielle Clarke Part Ii: Women And Feminine Archetypes Of The New Testament 8. Overview: Reading New Testament Women In Early Modern England, 1550-1700 / By Victoria Brownlee And Laura Gallagher 9. Christ's Tears And Maternal Cannibalism In Early Modern London / By Beatrice Groves 10. Mary Of Recusants And Reform: Literary Memory And Defloration / By Thomas Rist 11. Stabat Mater Dolorosa: Imagining Mary's Grief At The Cross / By Laura Gallagher 12. St Helena Of Britain In The Land Of The Magdalene: All's Well That Ends Well / By Lisa Hopkins 13. Imagining The Enemy: Protestant Readings Of The Whore Of Babylon In Early Modern England, C.1580-1625 / By Victoria Brownlee 14. Afterword / By Dympna Callaghan Index Edited By Victoria Brownlee And Laura Gallagher. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Illustrates the complex ways in which biblical women’s narratives could be reimagined for a variety of rhetorical and religious purposes -- .