Politics, Religion and the Song of Songs in Seventeenth-Century England [Hardcover]

The Song of Songs , with its highly sexual imagery, was very popular in seventeenth-century England in commentary and paraphrase. This book charts the fascination with the mystical marriage, its implication in the various political conflicts of the seventeenth century, and its appeal to seventeenth-century writers, particularly women.Acknowledgements Introduction Royal Brides and National Identity 1603-1625 The Mysticall Marriage , Martyrology and Arminianism 1625-1640 Emblematic Marriage at the 1630s Court From Annotations to Commentary: New Spectacles on the Song of Songs The Seventeenth-Century Woman Writer and the Bride Politics, Metaphor and the Song of Songs in the 1670s Epilogue: Benjamin Keach Rewriting the Bride Bibliography Index

'...this is a book of immense value for literary and religious historians alike, subtle in analysis and rigorous in research.' - Sarah Apetrei, Keble College Oxford, Journal of Ecclesiastical History

ELIZABETH CLARKE is Reader in English at Warwick University, UK, where she leads the Perdita Project investigating women's manuscript writing in the Early Modern period.