Power and Piety: discretio spirituum in the paratexts of early modern English women translators

By Amanda Bourne, 2020 -- The use of modesty topoi by early modern women writers has frequently been studied, but very rarely have these literary devices been explicated in light of the theological traditions which dictated their use. This study argues that the ways of addressing and appealing to religiopolitical authorities in the English Reformation remained largely continuous with the preReformation tradition of discretio spirituum as a source of spiritual and literary authorization, even as evangelicalism and humanism differentiated the theologies and educations of these women from their visionary predecessors. By looking at the paratexts of Anne Cooke Bacon, Elizabeth I, Anne Locke, and Mary Sidney Herbert, this study examines the continuities of discretio spirituum in the work of evangelical translators during the Tudor Reformations. Recognizing discretio spirituum as an ongoing source of religious and political legitimation in early modern England complicates the study of female discourse, and allows for a more complete picture of the self-fashioning of women writers across the Reformation

Bourne, Amanda Patrice

Virginia Theological Seminary

2020

@ 2020 Amanda Patrice Bourne

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