Essays in Persuasion: On Seventeenth-Century English Literature (Chicago Originals)

The essays collected in this volume are eloquent testimony to Frank Huntley's lifelong devotion to the study of seventeenth-century English literature and to his fascination with the problems inherent in that study. What intrigue him most are the cruxes that have engaged the energy and ingenuity of generations of scholars. What he does so well is to argue persuasively for highly plausible solutions to problems that have proved so resistant to easy interpretation. These essays strike at some of the major literary figures, genres, and philosophical concerns of seventeenth-century England. Among the poets, they cover Milton, Herbert, and Donne; among the prose writers, Thomas Browne and Jeremy Taylor; in drama, the anonymous Parnassus plays and Ben Jonson, as well as Shakespeare. There are essays on sermons, biography, characters, and emblems, as well as on Anglicanism, Calvinism, and Jesuitism. All are unified by their persuasive intent and, perhaps most markedly, by their civility and grace.