Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-pfhbr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-08T05:58:27.536Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Royalist Reclamation of Psalmic Song in 1650s England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Paula Loscocco
Paula Loscocco*
Affiliation:
The City University of New York, Lehman College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article brings into focus the royalist experience of political defeat and cultural recovery in mid-seventeenth-century England. It shows how royalist writers developed a polemically charged psalmic poetics that allowed them to appropriate the discursive authority of their Puritan enemies, reestablish their own cultural standing, and prepare the way for religious and political return. Several writers who found common cause in 1650s royalist poetics appear in these pages, including Izaak Walton, Thomas Stanley, Jeremy Taylor, Henry King, and the author(s) of the 1649 Eikon Basilike. Royalist writers with more divided responses to psalmic polemics appear here as well, including the episcopal divine, Henry Hammond, and the Davidic poet, Abraham Cowley. The poet, psalmist, and polemicist John Milton is an important presence throughout: his Eikonoklastes seems aware of his opponents’ polemical project, as do his 1653 psalms, and Paradise Lost itself may respond to what he once derided as royalist “Psalmistry.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 64 , Issue 2 , Summer 2011 , pp. 500 - 543
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 Renaissance Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Achinstein, Sharon. “Milton's Spectre in the Restoration: Marvell, Dryden, and Literary Enthusiasm.” Huntington Library Quarterly 58 (1990): 1–29.Google Scholar
Achinstein, Sharon. Milton and the Revolutionary Reader. Princeton, 1994.10.1515/9781400863907CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adamson, John. “Introduction.”. In The English Civil War (2009), 1–35.10.1007/978-1-137-01965-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barton, William. The Book of Psalms in metre. London, 1645.Google Scholar
Bevan, Jonquil. Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler: The Art of Recreation. New York, 1988.Google Scholar
Boddy, Margaret. “Milton's Translations of Psalms 80–88.” Modern Philology 64 (1996): 1–9.10.1086/389812CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buhler, Stephen M. “Counterpoint and Controversy: Milton and the Critiques of Polyphonic Music.” Milton Studies 36 (1998): 18–40.Google Scholar
The Cambridge History of Early Modern Literature Loewenstein, Davidand, Mueller, Jane. Cambridge, 2002.Google Scholar
Collette, Carolyn P. “Milton's Psalm Translations: Petition and Praise.” English Literary Renaissance 2 (1972): 243–59.10.1111/j.1475-6757.1972.tb00738.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corns, Thomas N. “Imagery in Civil War Polemic: Milton, Overton, and the Eikon Basilike.” Milton Quarterly 14 (1980): 1–6.10.1111/j.1094-348X.1980.tb00192.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowley, Abraham. Poems. Ed., Waller, AR. Cambridge, 1905.Google Scholar
Cowley, Abraham. “Preface to Poems, 1656.” In Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century. Volume II: 1650–1685 , Spingarn, Joel Elias, 77–90. Oxford, 1908.Google Scholar
Creaser, John. “Prosody and Liberty in Milton and Marvell.” In Milton and the Terms of Liberty , Parry, Graham , Raymond, Joad, 37–55. London, 2002.Google Scholar
De Groot, Jerome. Royalist Identities. New York, 2004.10.1057/9780230502055CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dryden, John. Selected Poetry and Prose , Miner, Earl. New York, 1971.Google Scholar
The English Civil War Adamson, John. New York, 2009.10.1007/978-1-137-01965-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, Willa McClung. Henry Lawes: Musician and Friend of Poets. New York, 1961.Google Scholar
Firth, Arthur C. H., and, R. S, Rait, eds. Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–1660. London, 1911.Google Scholar
Green, Ian. Print and Protestantism in Early Modern England. Oxford, 2001.Google Scholar
Guibbory, Achsah. Ceremony and Community from Herbert to Milton. Cambridge, 1998.Google Scholar
Hale, John K. “Why Did Milton Translate Psalms 80–88 in April 1648?” Literature and History 3 (1994): 55–62.10.1177/030619739400300205CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamlin, Hannibal. Psalm Culture and Early Modern English Literature. Cambridge, 2004.Google Scholar
Hammond, Henry. A Paraphrase and Annotations Upon the Book of the Psalms. London, 1659.Google Scholar
Herrick, Robert. Poems , Martin, L. C. New York, 1965.Google Scholar
Hill, Christopher. The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution. New York, 1993.Google Scholar
Hillyer, Richard. “Royalist Verse of the English Civil War.” PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1990.Google Scholar
Hirst, Derek. “The Politics of Literature in the English Republic.” The Seventeenth Century 5 (1990): 133–55.10.1080/0268117X.1990.10555307CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirst, Derek. “Literature and National Identity.” In The Cambridge History of Early Modern Literature (2002), 633–63.Google Scholar
Hollander, John. The Untuning of the Sky: Ideas of Music in English Poetry, 1500–1700. Princeton, 1961.Google Scholar
Hunter, William Bridges. “Milton Translated the Psalms.” Philological Quarterly 40 (1961): 485–94.Google Scholar
Jacobus, Lee A. “Milton Metaphrast: Logic and Rhetoric in Psalm 1.” Milton Studies 23 (1987): 119–32.Google Scholar
Keeble, N. H. The Literary Culture of Non-Conformity in Later Seventeenth-Century England. Athens, GA, 1987.Google Scholar
Keeble, NH. The Restoration: England in the 1660s. Blackwell, 2002.10.1002/9780470758311CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, Henry. The Psalmes of David, From the New Translation of the Bible Turned into Meter . London, 1651; 1654.Google Scholar
Knoppers, Laura Lunger. Historicizing Milton: Spectacle, Power, and Poetry in Restoration England . Athens, GA, 1994.Google Scholar
Kugel, James. In Potiphar's House: The Interpretive Life of Biblical Texts . Cambridge, MA, 1994.Google Scholar
Lachrymae Musarum; The Tears of the Muses . . . Upon the death of the most hopefull, Henry Lord Hastings . London, 1649.Google Scholar
Leslie, Henry. The martyrdome of King Charles, or His conformity with Christ in his sufferings . The Hague, 1649.Google Scholar
Loewenstein, David. Milton and the Drama of History: Historical Vision, Iconoclasm, and the Literary Imagination . Cambridge, 1990.Google Scholar
Loewenstein, David. Representing Revolution in Milton and his Contemporaries: Religion, Politics, and Polemics in Radical Protestantism . Cambridge, 2001.Google Scholar
Loewenstein, David, and, John , Morrill. “Literature and Revolution.” In Cambridge History of Early Modern Literature (2002), 664–713.Google Scholar
Lovelace, Richard. The Poems , Wilkinson, C. H. Oxford, 1953.Google Scholar
Loxley, James. Royalism and Poetry in the English Civil War: The Drawn Sword . New York, 1997.Google Scholar
Maguire, Nancy Klein. “The Theatrical Mask/Masques of Politics: The Case of Charles I.” Journal of British Studies 28 (1989): 1–22.10.1086/385923CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maltby, Judith D. Prayer Book and People in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England . New York, 1998.Google Scholar
Miller, Leo. “Some Inferences from Milton's Hebrew.” Milton Quarterly 18 (1984): 41–46.10.1111/j.1094-348X.1984.tb00279.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milton, Anthony. “Anglicanism and Royalism in the 1640s.” In The English Civil War (2009), 61–81.10.1007/978-1-137-01965-3_3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milton, John. Complete Poems and Major Prose , Hughes, Merritt Y. New York, 1959.Google Scholar
Milton, John. Complete Prose Works of John Milton, Volume III (1648–1649) . Ed., Hughes, Merritt Y. New Haven, 1962.Google Scholar
Morton, Timothy, and, Nigel, Smith, eds. Radicalism in British Literary Culture, 1650–1830. Cambridge, 2002.Google Scholar
Musarum Oxoniensium Epibathpia Serenissimae Reginarum Mariae . London, 1643.Google Scholar
Norbrook, David. Writing the English Republic: Poetry, Rhetoric and Politics, 1627–1660 . Cambridge, 2000.Google Scholar
Parker, Patricia. Literary Fat Ladies: Rhetoric, Gender, and Property . New York, 1987.Google Scholar
Potter, Lois. Secret Rites and Secret Writing: Royalist Literature, 1641–1660. New York, 1989.Google Scholar
Prineas, Matthew. “The Passionate Plain Style of Milton's 1653 Psalm Paraphrases.” In Reassembling Truth (2003), 63–77.Google Scholar
Radzinowicz, Mary Ann. Milton's Epics & the Book of Psalms. Princeton, 1989.10.1515/9781400860456CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reassembling Truth: Twenty-First-Century Milton Durham, Charles W , Pruitt, Kristin A Selinsgrove, PA, 2003.Google Scholar
Reynolds, Edward. The divine penitential meditations and vovves of His late Sacred Majesty in his solitude at Holmby-House. London, 1649.Google Scholar
Sandler, Florence. “Icon and Iconoclast.” In Achievements of the Left Hand: Essays on the Prose of John Milton , Lieb, Michael , Shawcross, John T, 160–84. Amherst, 1974.Google Scholar
Sandys, George. A Paraphrase upon the Divine Poems. London, 1636; 1638.Google Scholar
Schindler, Walter. Voice and Crisis: Invocation in Milton's Poetry. New York, 1984.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Michael J. “The Political Inaccuracy of Milton's Psalms 1–8 and 80–88.” In Reassembling Truth (2003), 79–94.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Regina. Remembering and Repeating: On Milton's Theology and Poetics. Chicago, 1993.Google Scholar
Scodel, Joshua. “Alternate Sites for Literature.” In The Cambridge History of Early Modern Literature (2002), 763–89.Google Scholar
Scott, David. “Rethinking Royalist Politics, 1642–9.” In The English Civil War (2009), 36–60.10.1007/978-1-137-01965-3_2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shell, Alison. Catholicism, Controversy, and the English Literary Imagination, 1558–1660. New York, 1999.10.1017/CBO9780511483981CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheppard, Samuel. The famous tragedie of King Charles I basely butchered. London, 1649.Google Scholar
Smith, Nigel. Literature and Revolution in England, 1640–1660. New Haven, 1994.Google Scholar
Stanley, Thomas. The Poems and Translations , Crump, Galbraith. Oxford, 1962.Google Scholar
Stanwood, P. G. Izaak Walton. New York, 1998.Google Scholar
Stuart, Charles, and, Gauden, John. Eikon Basilike: The Pourtraicture of His Sacred Maiestie in his Solitudes and Sufferings. London, 1649.Google Scholar
Stuart, Charles. Eikon Basilike: The Portrait of His Sacred Majesty in His Solitudes and Sufferings , Knachel, Philip. Ithaca, 1966.Google Scholar
Taylor, Jeremy. The Psalter of David: With Titles and Collects According to the Matter of Each Psalm. Oxford, 1644.Google Scholar
Taylor, Jeremy. The Rule and Exercise of Holy Living. London, 1650.Google Scholar
Taylor, Jeremy. The Psalter of David: With Titles and Collects According to the Matter of Each Psalm. London, 1655a.Google Scholar
Taylor, Jeremy. The Goldon Grove. London, 1655b.Google Scholar
Vickers, Brian. “Leisure and Idleness in the Renaissance: The Ambivalence of Otium.” Renaissance Studies 4.1–2 (1990): 1–37, 107–54.10.1111/j.1477-4658.1990.tb00208.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walton, Izaak. The compleat angler or, The contemplative man's recreation. London, 1653; 1655.Google Scholar
Walton, Izaak. The Complete Angler: 1653–1676 , Bevan, Jonquil. Oxford, 1983.10.1093/actrade/9780198123132.book.1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilcher, Robert. “What Was the King's Book For? The Evolution of the Eikon Basilike.” The Yearbook of English Studies 21 (1991): 218–28.10.2307/3508490CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilcher, Robert. The Writing of Royalism, 1628–1660. Cambridge, 2001.Google Scholar
Wither, George. A Preparation to the Psalter. London, 1619.Google Scholar
Wither, George. A collection of emblemes, ancient and moderne. London, 1635.Google Scholar
Woodhouse, A. S. P., and, Douglas, Bush, eds. A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton. Vol. 2, Part 3. New York, 1972.Google Scholar
Zwicker, Steven N. Lines of Authority: Politics and English Literary Culture, 1649–1689. Ithaca, 1993.Google Scholar