Studies in English protestant dissent and literature after 1662

Abstract

The recognition of a defining literary culture aligned with Protestant dissent after 1662 acknowledges not only the significance of religious identity in writers whose primary experience is (after 17 August 1662) varying degrees of civil and religious persecution but also how that experience is articulated through the literary sensibilities of well-educated scholars of Biblical narrative and rhetoric. At the forefront of this canon are figures primarily associated with England's recent revolutionary past-such as Milton, Bunyan, Baxter, and Fox-many of whom remained active after 1660-as well as later authors who, like Defoe, were themselves often trained for the ministry, and who engaged firsthand with the emerging prominence of new forms of fiction, such as the novel, which in turn developed in the wake of popular didactic writing including spiritual biographies and conduct works. The mainstream English literary canon, after Charles II's Restoration, is formed from cultural products originating in and around the familiar sites of social congregation, including the court and theatre, in addition to popular arenas for political debate such as the coffee house, pulpit, and printing press. Over the past three decades, however, Neil Keeble and others have delineated a parallel cultural tradition, rich, vibrant, and equally responsive to political and social change. Scholars of Protestant dissenting literary culture after 1662 acknowledge not only the significance of religious identity in writers whose primary experience is (after 17 August 1662) varying degrees of civil and religious persecution but also how that experience is articulated through the literary acuity of well-educated scholars of Biblical narrative and rhetoric. At the forefront of this canon are figures primarily associated with England's recent revolutionary past, such as Milton, Bunyan, Baxter, and Fox. The longevity of this particular form of writing is apparent, however, in the prolific output of Daniel Defoe, and both its content and sensibilities are clearly affiliated with writing associated with other, later, manifestations of Protestant identity such as Methodism. If this article can only consider limited manifestations of Protestant dissenters' cultural identity during a notably transformational episode in their wider history, it also tacitly acknowledges its subcategorisation within a series of broader considerations of print culture extending far beyond 1700. Each of