more information – www.cambridge.org/9781107032736 EUCHARIST AND THE POETIC IMAGINATION IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND TheReformationchangedforeverhowthesacramentoftheeucharist wasunderstood.Thisstudyofsixcanonicalearlymodernlyricpoets traces the literary afterlife of what was one of the greatest doctrinal shifts in English history. Sophie Read argues that the move from a literal to a figurative understanding of the phrase ‘this is my body’ exerted a powerful imaginative pull on successive generations. To illustratethis,she examinesindetail thework ofSouthwell,Donne, Herbert, Crashaw, Vaughan and Milton, who between them repre- sent a broad range of doctrinal and confessional positions, from the JesuitSouthwelltoMilton’sheterodoxPuritanism.Individually,each chapter examines how eucharistic ideas are expressed through a par- ticular rhetorical trope; together, they illuminate the continued importanceoftheeucharist’stransformationwellintotheseventeenth century – not simply as amatterofdoctrine, butas a rhetorical and poeticmode. sophie read is a University Lecturer in English and Fellow of Christ’sCollege,Cambridge. 104 IDEAS IN CONTEXT EucharistandthePoeticImaginationinEarlyModernEngland ideas in context EditedbyDavidArmitage,RichardBourke,JenniferPitts andJohnRobertson Thebooksinthisserieswilldiscusstheemergenceofintellectualtraditionsandof relatednewdisciplines.Theprocedures,aimsandvocabulariesthatweregenerated will be set in the context of the alternatives available within the contemporary frameworksofideasandinstitutions.Throughdetailedstudiesoftheevolutionof such traditions, and their modification by different audiences, it is hoped that a newpicturewillformofthedevelopmentofideasintheirconcretecontexts.Bythis means, artificial distinctions between the history of philosophy, of the various sciences,ofsocietyandpolitics,andofliteraturemaybeseentodissolve. TheseriesispublishedwiththesupportoftheExxonFoundation. Alistofbooksintheserieswillbefoundattheendofthevolume. EUCHARIST AND THE POETIC IMAGINATION IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND SOPHIE READ cambridge university press Cambridge,NewYork,Melbourne,Madrid,CapeTown, Singapore,SãoPaulo,Delhi,MexicoCity CambridgeUniversityPress TheEdinburghBuilding,Cambridgecb28ru,UK PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyCambridgeUniversityPress,NewYork www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781107032736 ©SophieRead2013 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublished2013 PrintedandboundintheUnitedKingdombyMPGBooksGroup AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary isbn978-1-107-03273-6Hardback CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceor accuracyofURLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredto inthispublication,anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuch websitesis,orwillremain,accurateorappropriate. Contents Listofillustrations page viii Acknowledgements ix Noteonthetext xi Introduction 1 1 Southwellandparadox 40 2 Donneandpunning 69 3 Herbertandmetanoia 98 4 Crashawandmetonymy 127 5 Vaughanandsynecdoche 154 6 Miltonandmetaphor 179 Epilogue 205 Selectbibliography 208 Index 220 vii Illustrations 1.1 EngravingofRobertSouthwell.©TrusteesoftheBritish Museum. page 52 4.1 ‘SanguisChristi’,FrancescoSpierreafterGianLorenzo Bernini,c.1669–70.©TrusteesoftheBritishMuseum. 152 5.1 TitlepageofHenryVaughan,SilexScintillans(London, 1650). 159 viii