Recent historical studies have emphasized that the English Reformation
can no longer be seen as an inevitable response to abuses within the
late-medieval Western ('Catholic') Church. Contrary to Protestant
stereotypes, the late-medieval Church catered to the spiritual needs of
its members. In addition, the English Reformation was an incomplete
process and, even after the Elizabethan Settlement of 1559, English
religious culture was full of continuities with the past, with
pre-Reformation religious culture only partially displaced. This essay
collection investigates how the literature of the first century after
the Elizabethan Settlement dealt with this cultural ambivalence.
Focusing on a mixture of canonical texts and less well-known ones, the
contributors show that the religious hybridity of early-modern England
is found in a concentrated form in the literary texts of the period. In
contrast to theologians, literary writers were not obliged to choose
sides. Literary discourse could confront incompatible doctrinal
perspectives within a single text, or forge a hybrid spiritual
sensibility out of the competing religious traditions. Literature,
sometimes in spite of writers' avowed denominational allegiances,
embraced, explored and deepened the ambivalence of early modern English
religious culture in a manner unavailable in other kinds of texts.
