Brian Cummings examines the place of literature in the Reformation, considering how arguments about biblical meaning and literary interpretation influenced the new theology, and how developments in theology in turn influenced literary practices. Bringing together genres and styles of writing which are normally kept apart (poems, sermons, treatises, commentaries), he offers a major re-evaluation of the literary production of this intensely verbal and controversialperiod.

• Note to the Reader


• Abbreviations


• Prologue: The Reformation and Literary Culture


• I. Humanism and Theology in Northern Europe 1512-1527


• The Reformation of the Reader


• New Grammar and New Theology


• Erasmus contra Luther


• II. The English Language and the English Reformations 1521-1603


• Vernacular Theology


• Protestant Culture


• III. Literature and the English Reformations 1580-1640


• Calvinist and Anti-Calvinist


• Recusant Poetry


• God's Grammar


• Epilogue: Revolutionary English


• Primary Sources


• Secondary Sources


• Index