Abstract
Suffering and the early modern imagination, 1570-1671 is a study of the imaginative handling of suffering in Renaissance England literature. Beginning with the Reformed Protestant hermeneutics detailing the redemptive qualities of pain with John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs in 1570, the thesis goes on to trace how the poetry and drama of the ensuing century participate in expanding the availability of meanings for pain, culminating with a consideration of the critique of assigning any redemptive values to the pain of John Milton’s titular protagonist of his closet drama, Samson Agonistes, in 1671.Thesis embargoed until 31 December 2024.
| Date of Award | Dec 2021 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Sponsors | AHRC Northern Bridge DTP |
| Supervisor | Mark Burnett (Supervisor) & Edel Lamb (Supervisor) |
Keywords
- Suffering
- imagination
- early modern literature
- poetry
- drama
- John Foxe
- Christopher Marlowe
- John Donne
- Margaret Cavendish
- John Milton