The Emergence of Quaker Writing: Dissenting Literature in Seventeenth-century EnglandThomas N. Corns, David Loewenstein Among the radical sects which flourished during the tumultuous years of the English Revolution, the early Quakers were particularly aware of the power of the written word to promote their prophetic visions and unorthodox beliefs. During the first years of their movement, as they spread aggressively throughout England, they produced hundreds of tracts which fiercely denounced temporal authorities, attacked orthodox Puritanism, rejected social hierarchies and set forms of worship, promoted the ideology of the Lamb's War, and proclaimed the power of the light within. At the Restoration and in the subsequent years of sharpest persecution, the movement evolved other literary voices to chronicle its suffering and to urge the perseverance of its oppressed members. As persecution eased, other Quaker idioms developed, more consonant with an emergent quietism. This collection of new essays by literary scholars and historians looks at the diversity of seventeenth-century Quaker writing, examining its rhetoric, its polemical strategies, its purposeful use of the print medium, and the heroism and vehemence of its world vision. |
Contents
The Emergence | 1 |
George Fox and the Apocalyptic | 25 |
Nigel Smith | 57 |
The Singular Experiences | 70 |
Early | 88 |
The Critical Problem of Foxs | 96 |
N H Keeble | 112 |
Joseph Besse and the Quaker Culture of Suffering | 126 |
A Historians Afterword | 142 |
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Common terms and phrases
apocalyptic authority Besse Besse's Biblical called Cambridge University Press Christ Christian Christopher Hill Church Cromwell culture discourse divine early Friends early Quaker writing edition Edward Burrough English Civil War English Revolution Epistle essay experience Farnworth Fell's female feminist Fox's Journal Francis Howgill George Fox God's hath historians Howgill Interregnum Isaac Penington James Nayler Jews John Lambs Officer language letters literary Literature manuscript Margaret Fell Mary Penington meetings millenarian mother in Israel narrative Nigel Smith Oxford pamphlets Penn's persecution polemical political preaching printed prison prophecy prophetic prose published Puritan Quaker history Quaker leaders Quaker ministers Quaker movement Quaker publications Quaker tracts Quaker women Radical Religion Ranters Reay religious Restoration revolutionary rhetorical Richard Farnworth Robert Rich role scriptural Seeker sense Seventeenth-Century England Seventeenth-Century Quaker spiritual suffering Testimony Thomas Aldam thou truth visionary voice William Penn woman words worship Wrath ye Lord