Title: Prayer, despair, and drama
First published: 1996
Description: Prayer, Despair, and Drama explores the godly sorrow of Elizabethan Calvinists and finds that what some have characterized as an evangelism of fear functioned more as a kind of religious therapy.

In this major contribution to discussions of the relationship between religion and literature in Elizabethan England, Peter Iver Kaufman argues that the soul-searching and self-scourging typical of late Tudor Calvinism was reflected in the rhetoric of self-loathing then prevalent in sermons, sonnets, and soliloquys. Kaufman shows how this spiritual psychology informs major literary texts including Hamlet, The Faerie Queene, Donne's Holy Sonnets, and other works.
Subjects: History, Doctrines, Spirituality, Calvinism, Intellectual life, Anglican Communion, Church history, Church of England, Church of england, doctrines, Church of england, history, Great britain, intellectual life, Great britain, church history, 16th century
Places: England, Great Britain
Time periods: 16th century, Elizabeth, 1558-1603
LC classification: BR757 .K38 1996