The Literary Achievement of the Early Modern Sermon a DISSERTATI
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THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA Understanding and Presence: The Literary Achievement of the Early Modern Sermon A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Faculty of the Department of English School of Arts and Sciences Of the Catholic University of America In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree Doctor of Philosophy By Emily Alianello Washington, D.C. 2019 Understanding and Presence: The Literary Achievement of the Early Modern Sermon By Emily Alianello, Ph.D. Director: Tobias Gregory, Ph.D. In both their preached and printed forms, sermons were one of the dominant genres of the early modern period. While studies of early modern sermons tend to emphasize conflict by centering sermons’ occasional content, this dissertation approaches them primarily as literary texts. It explores how the sermons of Lancelot Andrewes, John Donne, Richard Sibbes and Henry King sought to move their auditories toward faith and in doing so worked to build a community. While Andrewes, Donne, Sibbes and King differed in style, theology and temperament, all four belonged to the “conforming center” of the Jacobean and Caroline English church. These four preachers offer a window into efforts within the conforming church to emphasize shared ground and, in the face of narrowing definitions of conformity on the one hand and of the true church on the other, to create a wider space within the national English church. In treating these sermons seriously as literary texts, this study offers close readings of selected individual sermons from each preacher. These readings join a growing number of studies of religious writing during this period that seek to examine how faith prompted literary efforts to bind rather than divide. These sermons, in language that rendered the abstractions of faith experiential, sought to evoke the presence of things not seen. This study argues that, in the sermons of these four preachers, the nature of that experience also shaped communal identity. The sense of the communal created by these sermons is one that explicitly seeks unity despite conflict through the creation of shared experience, rather than enforcing unity by drawing tighter boundaries. As such, these efforts represent attempts to articulate a unified experience of faith in the face of the increasing fragmentation of the church in England. This study traces, in Andrewes’ sacramental language, Donne’s performative recognition of experience, Sibbes’s loving mysticism, and King’s genre- blurring, the ways some preachers of the conforming center sought to draw their auditories toward a participation in the sermon that was also participation in the community of faith. In distinctive ways, each preacher seeks to make apprehensible and immediate the remote things of faith. This dissertation by Emily Alianello fulfills the dissertation requirement for the doctoral degree in English approved by Tobias Gregory, Ph.D., as Director, and by Michael Mack, Ph.D., and Daniel Gibbons, Ph.D., as Readers. __________________________________________ Tobias Gregory, Ph.D., Director __________________________________________ Michael Mack, Ph.D., Reader __________________________________________ Daniel Gibbons, Ph.D., Reader ii For Livvie. I hope that one day you will read this and know what you can do. iii Table of Contents 1. Introduction.................................................................................................................................................... 1 I. The Story of the Sermon ........................................................................................................................................... 7 II. Literary Sermons of the Conforming Center ..................................................................................................... 18 III. This Study ............................................................................................................................................................... 32 IV. Summary of Argument ......................................................................................................................................... 36 2. Of the Preaching of the Word ................................................................................................................... 39 I. “Keyes to the kingdom of heaven” ....................................................................................................................... 41 II. Pulpits: Preaching Venues and Sermon Forms .................................................................................................. 56 III. “A Paper-Life”: Sermons and Print.................................................................................................................... 62 IV. Artes Praedicandi ...................................................................................................................................................... 69 3. Hunger: Sacramental Participation in the Sermons of Lancelot Andrewes ........................................ 88 I. “A Folly to Fall to Comparisons:” Andrewes’ Pastoral Theology .................................................................... 91 II. Vivid Structure: Style and Participation ............................................................................................................. 107 III. Word Feasts: Christmas, Easter, Whitsunday ................................................................................................. 117 4. “Every particular soule”: The Individual in Community in the Sermons of John Donne ............ 135 I. “Consolation without Controversie” .................................................................................................................. 140 II. The House of God ............................................................................................................................................... 156 III. “Open to most men” .......................................................................................................................................... 169 5. “Sweet Singer of Israel:” Comfort and the Preacher in the Sermons of Richard Sibbes............... 176 I. Comfortable Passages ............................................................................................................................................ 181 II. “The Soule on Rocke” ......................................................................................................................................... 191 II. “He will give being to every word” .................................................................................................................... 206 III. “A communicative, diffusive goodnesse” ....................................................................................................... 216 6. “The Seal of Amen”: Prayer and Community in Henry King’s Exposition Upon the Lord’s Prayer . 225 I. King and The Exposition Upon the Lord’s Prayer .................................................................................................... 228 II. “Something Understood”: What is Prayer? ...................................................................................................... 233 III. Liturgical Prayer and the Creation of Community ......................................................................................... 244 IV. Participation in Divine Power ........................................................................................................................... 257 V. Dual Persuasion: Petition and Exhortation Together ..................................................................................... 261 Coda: King in 1664 ....................................................................................................................................... 269 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As my debts are many, I shall attempt to begin at the beginning, although I fear omitting at least some who should be thanked. Deborah and Mark Alianello gave me a childhood of books and never quashed a single eccentric interest. They have been a source of unfailing support even in these last long days of my “little essay.” Many years ago, Dr. Marian Sanders and Dr. David Noe pushed me to work harder than I had before and in doing so opened up the world of the academy to me. Dr. Steven Hake is responsible for the core of my undergraduate education. His genuine love for the works we read and for his students still bears fruit. Although we have passed by like the lantern out- of-doors, his prayers and his ethic of delight have followed me and so many others. Dr. Michael Mack’s classes, both those I took and those I observed, have shaped my teaching and my writing. Dr. Daniel Gibbons’ book, Conflicts of Devotion, clarified some of the aims of this project, and his incisive criticism has spurred me to re-think and re-write for the better. I am grateful to both of them for their presence on this committee and in my graduate education. Dr. Tobias Gregory has been an unfailingly patient, kind and wise director. His encouraging comments on a long ago class paper provided the genesis of this project. For your longsuffering and your guidance, thank you. Jennifer Clement kindly gave an afternoon in the fall of 2016 to an unknown Ph.D. student struggling with Richard Sibbes. Her friendly encouragement at the time is matched by the catalytic role in my project played by her scholarship. Kelly Franklin first sent me the link to BYU’s database of John Donne’s sermons. Writing Center sessions