About the Book
There is a kind of conscience some men keepe,
Is like a Member that's benumb'd with sleepe;
Which, as it gathers Blood, and wakes agen,
It shoots, and pricks, and feeles as bigg as ten
Donne, Herbert, and Vaughan see the conscience as only partly theirs, only partly under their control. Of course, as theologians said, it ought to be a simple syllogism, comparing actions to God's law, and giving judgement, in a joint procedure of the soul and its maker. Inevitably, though, there are problems. Hearts refuse to confess, or forget the rules, or jumble them up, or refuse to come to the point when delivering a verdict. The three poets are beady-eyed experts on failure. After all, where subjects can only discover their authentic nature in relation to the divine it matters whether the conversation works. Remarkably, each poet - despite their very different devotional backgrounds - uses similar sets of tropes to investigate problems: enigma, aposiopesis (breaking off), chiasmus, subjectio (asking then answering a question), and antanaclasis (repetition with a difference). Structured like a language, the conscience is tortured, rewritten, read, and broken up to engineer a proper response. Considering the faculty as an uncomfortable extrusion of the divine into the everyday, the rhetoric of the conscience transforms Protestant into prosthetic poetics. It moves between early modern theology, rhetoric, and aesthetic theory to give original, scholarly, and committed readings of the great metaphysical poets. Topics covered include boredom, torture, graffiti, tattoos, anthologizing, resentment, tears, dust, casuistry, and opportunism.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
1: The conscience as a syllogism
2: Torturing the conscience with divine subjectio
3: Godly graffiti, or, the enigma of the conscience
4: Bumptious reading and priggish antanaclasis
5: Peevish weariness, aposiopesis, and the irresolute conscience
6: Eyes, tears, eyes, and the penitential chiasmus
7: Conclusion: the engineered conscience
Bibliography
Review :
lively energy ... wit ,,, conceptual daring ... entertaining and intelligent piece of scholarship
intelligent and entertaining... witty... keen sense for when the pursuit of piety veers into sardonic comedy
extremely interesting, if stomach-churning... excellent close readings... subtle... interesting... valuable and welcome
Sullivan's study is thought-provoking, and perhaps especially valuable in terms of her proposed methodology of reading early modern poetry, which is applicable to so many more texts than were fitted into her compact argument.
rich and stimulating, dense but readable... innovative, sustained, and illuminating rhetorical analyses [of] a vital subject in our intellectual history
brilliant insights through unusual juxtaposition and deft assimilation
expands our knowledge of theological and tropological connections in early modern devotional texts... surprising and valuable
insightful... sharp... probing
