Equivocation replaced Thomistic analogy as a means of predicting God in the minds of many seventeenth-century divines. In this study, Professor Asals analyses George Herbert’s use of language as a method of devotion in his major cycle poem, The Temple. Tracing the logical notion of equivocation (here the extensive us of puns and pun-like verbal devices) as prediction through other influences on his poetry, she argues that the very basis of Herbert’s work lies in its responsibility in predicting God as One and Love. Asals explains that, for Herbert, the act of writing a poem—the actual handwriting—was a sacramental and ceremonial act of worship recreating Christ’s death on the cross: ink becomes blood. The sign on the printed page points sacramentally to the blood it signifies. Thus, the domain of Herbert’s poetry reaches from earth to heaven and from heaven to earth. Continuing with an examination of Herbert’s language, including aspects of phonology, morphology, and syntax, Asals reveals its two-fold significance in expression and meaning. Through a detailed reading of the entire corpus, she investigates the profound influence of Augustinianism and Wisdom literature on the way poetry works and explores the meaning of gesture and its importance to Herbert’s Anglicanism—his belief in the importance of ceremony. In the final chapter, on the topos of Magdalene, its relationship to Herbert’s mother, and his mother’s importance to his writing, Asals argues that Anglicanism as a way to God (and God as a way to himself) is at the very core of Herbert’s poetics. This book establishes a new critical milieu in which Herbert may be interpreted and sheds new light on the poetry of other writers of the period.

For over a century, the Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard (1813-55) has been at the center of a number of important discussions, concerning not only philosophy and theology, but also, more recently, fields such as social thought, psychology, and contemporary aesthetics, especially literary theory. Despite his relatively short life, Kierkegaard was an extraordinarily prolific writer, as attested to by the 26-volume Princeton University Press edition of all of his published writings. But Kierkegaard left behind nearly as much unpublished writing, most of which consists of what are called his "journals and notebooks." Kierkegaard has long been recognized as one of history's great journal keepers, but only rather small portions of his journals and notebooks are what we usually understand by the term "diaries." By far the greater part of Kierkegaard's journals and notebooks consists of reflections on a myriad of subjects--philosophical, religious, political, personal. Studying his journals and notebooks takes us into his workshop, where we can see his entire universe of thought. We can witness the genesis of his published works, to be sure--but we can also see whole galaxies of concepts, new insights, and fragments, large and small, of partially (or almost entirely) completed but unpublished works. Kierkegaard's Journals and Notebooks enables us to see the thinker in dialogue with his times and with himself. Volume 5 of this 11-volume series includes five of Kierkegaard's important "NB" journals (Journals NB6 through NB10), covering the months from summer 1848 through early May 1849. This was a turbulent period both in the history of Denmark--which was experiencing the immediate aftermath of revolution and the fall of absolutism, a continuing war with the German states, and the replacement of the State Church with the Danish People's Church--and for Kierkegaard personally. The journals in the present volume include Kierkegaard's reactions to the political upheaval, a retrospective account of his audiences with King Christian VIII, deliberations about publishing an autobiographical explanation of his writings, and an increasingly harsh critique of the Danish Church. These journals also reflect Kierkegaard's deep concern over his collision with the satirical journal Corsair, an experience that helped radicalize his view of "essential Christianity" and caused him to ponder the meaning of martyrdom. Kierkegaard wrote his journals in a two-column format, one for his initial entries and the second for the extensive marginal comments that he added later. This edition of the journals reproduces this format, includes several photographs of original manuscript pages, and contains extensive scholarly commentary on the various entries and on the history of the manuscripts being reproduced.

Religious issues and discourse are key to an understanding of Shakespeare's plays and poems. This dictionary discusses over 1000 words and names in Shakespeare's works that have a religious connotation. Its unique word-by-word approach allows equal consideration of the full nuance of each of these words, from 'abbess' to 'zeal'. It also gradually reveals the persistence, the variety, and the sophistication of Shakespeare's religious usage. Frequent attention is given to the prominence of Reformation controversy in these words, and to Shakespeare's often ingenious and playful metaphoric usage of them. Theological commonplaces assume a major place in the dictionary, as do overt references to biblical figures, biblical stories and biblical place-names; biblical allusions; church figures and saints.