David Parry | University of Exeter (original) (raw)

Publications by David Parry

Christianity & Literature, Dec 1, 2017

In their endeavors to persuade their readers and hearers to conversion and godly living, Puritan ... more In their endeavors to persuade their readers and hearers to conversion and godly living, Puritan writers and preachers in early modern England make use of the three modes of persuasion identified by Aristotle: logos (appeal to rational argument), pathos (appeal to emotion), and ethos (appeal to the perceived credibility of the speaker). Although deploying rhetorical techniques, Puritan writers seek to manifest a Spirit-wrought sincerity, understood as earnest expression flowing from doctrinal conviction, inward spiritual experience, and a heartfelt desire to persuade others. This article explores these dynamics in the works of William Perkins, Richard Sibbes, Richard Baxter, and John Bunyan.

The Glass, 2019

This article examines the treatment of prayer in the writing of two prominent religious writers o... more This article examines the treatment of prayer in the writing of two prominent religious writers of the seventeenth century, the Anglican priest-poet George Herbert and the Dissenting tinker-preacher John Bunyan, best known for his authorship of The Pilgrim’s Progress. The spiritual and literary sensibilities of Bunyan and Herbert overlap in substantial ways despite their differing positions in the religious politics of the period, positions that inform different and sometimes conflicting approaches to prayer. I argue that although Herbert and Bunyan have disagreements on the form of prayer, especially on the use of written liturgical prayers, they largely agree on the spirit of prayer.

The Hermeneutics of Hell: Devilish Visions and Visions of the Devil, ed. Gregor Thuswalder and Daniel Russ (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 47–71, 2017

Ebook version available at https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9783319521978 . Early modern write... more Ebook version available at https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9783319521978 .

Early modern writers of both literary and theological texts betray anxieties over how to distinguish between the work of God and the devil. Martin Luther, for instance, writes that “The devil so clothes and adorns himself with Christ’s name and works and can pose and act in such a way that one could swear a thousand oaths that it is truly Christ himself.”

This is due to Satan’s ability to transform himself into an “angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14), a passage referenced by German humanist Johannes Susenbrotus in his rhetorical textbook Epitome troporum ac schematum (c.1540) in connection with the figure of paradiastole. As Quentin Skinner has explored, paradiastole is the technique either of extenuating a vice by describing it as the virtue that it most resembles, or of denigrating virtue to make it appear as a vice. While Skinner has highlighted how paradiastole was deployed in early modern political discourse, my chapter extends Skinner’s analysis to explore notions of diabolic deception in religious writing of the period and in literary works by Milton, Bunyan, and Shakespeare.

In English Puritan practical divinity, the paradiastolic dynamic of satanic rhetoric goes beyond the outward ethical sphere of classical rhetoric into one’s inward spiritual disposition – the devil seeks to confuse carnal presumption for saving faith and vice versa. John Bunyan’s allegorical narrative The Pilgrim’s Progress dramatizes the satanic paradiastolic dynamic in the person of characters such as the Flatterer. In a less overtly religious context, satanic paradiastole surfaces in the works of Shakespeare, both in verbal references to the devil, and in the characterisation of devilish human manipulators. I also suggest that satanic paradiastole offers a key to the interpretive crux in John Milton’s Paradise Lost in which Satan resolves, “Evil, be thou my good.”

Published in Luther and Calvinism: Image and Reception of Martin Luther in the History and Theolo... more Published in Luther and Calvinism: Image and Reception of Martin Luther in the History and Theology of Calvinism, ed. Herman J. Selderhuis and J. Marius J. Lange van Ravenswaay (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017), 379–407.

Chapter downloadable for $6 US from publisher, or contact me if interested:
http://www.vr-elibrary.de/doi/abs/10.13109/9783666552625.379#.WVPlUWjyvIU
(First 413 hits for draft conference paper under revision.)

This article identifies a biblical allusion in John Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis not previously noted... more This article identifies a biblical allusion in John Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis not previously noted. It argues that Dryden describes the looting undertaken by Sir Robert Holmes’s sailors in their raid on the Vlie estuary in terms that associate them with Hophni and Phinehas, the sacrilegious sons of the high priest Eli, called “sons of Belial” in 1 Samuel. This allusion subverts the propaganda function of the poem by calling into question the morality of England’s economic and imperial expansion, and lends credence to the suggestion of Dutch writers that the Great Fire of London represents divine retribution for “Holmes’s Bonfire.”

‘Francis Bacon and the Rhetorical Reordering of Reality’, Rhetor, 6 (2016), 1–17. Online open acc... more ‘Francis Bacon and the Rhetorical Reordering of Reality’, Rhetor, 6 (2016), 1–17. Online open access journal, freely available http://cssr-scer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Rhetor-6-1-Francis-Bacon-Parry.pdf . (First 1,871 hits here pertain to pre-publication conference paper.)

Abstract:
Francis Bacon is accused by some of fragmenting a unified vision of the world by focusing on the empirical observation of small particulars. In a similar way, older scholarship sees Bacon as opposed to the flowing discourse of Ciceronian rhetoric in favour of disconnected aphorisms. These are parallel oversimplifications of Bacon. Bacon himself uses Ciceronian style in his critique of Ciceronian excess, and while, for Bacon, verbal rhetoric is of no use in establishing truth, it is vital to the transmission of truth to a wider audience. Rhetoric thus has a crucial role in the collaborative project outlined by Bacon of obtaining and putting to work true knowledge of the world in order to recover the dominion over creation that humanity lost at the Fall.
Similarly, Bacon’s emphasis on deriving knowledge from empirical observation rather than inherited intellectual frameworks is not intended to fragment knowledge, but rather to begin the process of reconstituting the whole body of human knowledge on a sound footing. This process of specific observations gradually joining together is paralleled by bare aphorisms joining together to form more connected discourse. Far from advocating a free play of signifiers with no resolution, Bacon’s intellectual project is intensely teleological, although it is a project whose telos lies beyond the capacity of one person and beyond the scope of one lifetime to accomplish. We should not be prematurely satisfied as if the temple of wisdom is complete before this so, but we may enjoy provisional pleasures along the way.
Keywords: Francis Bacon, rhetoric, Novum Organum, prose style, aphorisms, rhetoric of science.

""This article examines the texts recounting the trials of Anne Askew (c.1521- 1546) and Anne Hut... more ""This article examines the texts recounting the trials of Anne Askew (c.1521- 1546) and Anne Hutchinson (c.1591-1643). Anne Askew was burnt for eucharistic views contravening Henry VIII’s Six Articles, whilst Anne Hutchinson was a dissident exiled from the Puritan colony of New England. Scholarship on these two Annes usually focuses either on gender roles or on doctrinal controversy. This article proposes that gender and doctrine are intertwined in the concepts of activity and passivity invoked in these narratives and expressed through the metaphors of sowing seed, pregnancy and birth. These metaphors echo, in unsettling ways, Aristotle, Luther and the Bible.

Key words: heresy trials, female dissidents, Anne Askew, Anne Hutchinson""

Problems of Literary Genres/Zagadnienia Rodzajów Literackich, 58/116.2 (2015), 13–28. Freely avai... more Problems of Literary Genres/Zagadnienia Rodzajów Literackich, 58/116.2 (2015), 13–28. Freely available at http://cejsh.icm.edu.pl/cejsh/element/bwmeta1.element.desklight-c48eeea9-899b-4734-869c-fb4145945fd3 .

Abstract:
Many early modern writers were fascinated by the notion of the Adamic language in which Adam named the animals, a language that many believed could express the essence of things perfectly. Umberto Eco has displayed a recurrent interest in Adamic language in both his scholarship and his fiction, and this article pays tribute to Eco through placing his work in conversation with a number of scholarly fields in which the idea of Adamic language occurs, including studies of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, the Qur’an and Islamic tradition, the history of science, and early Mormonism. The article concludes by challenging some of the theoretical assumptions made about Adamic language, both by Eco and in early modern discussions, through a rereading of Adam’s speech in Genesis 2.

Religious Diaspora in Early Modern Europe: Strategies of Exile, ed. Timothy Fehler, Greta Kroeker, Charles Parker, and Jonathan Ray (Pickering and Chatto, 2014), 47-60., Jan 2014

The Glass, 25 (Spring 2013), 3-17.

Notes and Queries, 61.3 (September 2014), 377-380. Available to subscribers at http://nq.oxfordjournals.org/content/61/3/377

The Recorder 22 (Spring 2016), 8–10. A short note on a letter I discovered from John Brown of B... more The Recorder 22 (Spring 2016), 8–10.

A short note on a letter I discovered from John Brown of Bedford (Bunyan's 19th century biographer and successor as pastor to the Bedford Independent congregation), to J.B. Lightfoot, bishop of Durham and noted New Testament/patristics scholar. The letter is stuck into a copy of Brown's biography in the possession of the Cambridge Divinity faculty library, whose pages (as of the time of writing) have been cut only partway through.

Freely available at https://johnbunyansociety.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/2016-recorder1.pdf

Writing for students and general readership by David Parry

An introduction to the religious history and ideas that form a background to Milton's writing. Pa... more An introduction to the religious history and ideas that form a background to Milton's writing. Part of Darkness Visible, a web resource introducing Milton's Paradise Lost and its contexts to first-time readers. Top Google hit for "Milton and religion" (as of 28th November 2014). Freely available at http://darknessvisible.christs.cam.ac.uk/religion.html

An article on Milton's student years at Christ's College, Cambridge. Part of a souvenir programme... more An article on Milton's student years at Christ's College, Cambridge. Part of a souvenir programme I edited for a performance of Milton's Comus and a 'reply' masque by John Kinsella at Christ's College marking Milton's quatercentenary in 2008. This article is found on pages 9 and 10 of the PDF freely available at http://milton.christs.cam.ac.uk/comusprogramme.pdf .

Christianity & Literature, Dec 1, 2017

In their endeavors to persuade their readers and hearers to conversion and godly living, Puritan ... more In their endeavors to persuade their readers and hearers to conversion and godly living, Puritan writers and preachers in early modern England make use of the three modes of persuasion identified by Aristotle: logos (appeal to rational argument), pathos (appeal to emotion), and ethos (appeal to the perceived credibility of the speaker). Although deploying rhetorical techniques, Puritan writers seek to manifest a Spirit-wrought sincerity, understood as earnest expression flowing from doctrinal conviction, inward spiritual experience, and a heartfelt desire to persuade others. This article explores these dynamics in the works of William Perkins, Richard Sibbes, Richard Baxter, and John Bunyan.

The Glass, 2019

This article examines the treatment of prayer in the writing of two prominent religious writers o... more This article examines the treatment of prayer in the writing of two prominent religious writers of the seventeenth century, the Anglican priest-poet George Herbert and the Dissenting tinker-preacher John Bunyan, best known for his authorship of The Pilgrim’s Progress. The spiritual and literary sensibilities of Bunyan and Herbert overlap in substantial ways despite their differing positions in the religious politics of the period, positions that inform different and sometimes conflicting approaches to prayer. I argue that although Herbert and Bunyan have disagreements on the form of prayer, especially on the use of written liturgical prayers, they largely agree on the spirit of prayer.

The Hermeneutics of Hell: Devilish Visions and Visions of the Devil, ed. Gregor Thuswalder and Daniel Russ (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 47–71, 2017

Ebook version available at https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9783319521978 . Early modern write... more Ebook version available at https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9783319521978 .

Early modern writers of both literary and theological texts betray anxieties over how to distinguish between the work of God and the devil. Martin Luther, for instance, writes that “The devil so clothes and adorns himself with Christ’s name and works and can pose and act in such a way that one could swear a thousand oaths that it is truly Christ himself.”

This is due to Satan’s ability to transform himself into an “angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14), a passage referenced by German humanist Johannes Susenbrotus in his rhetorical textbook Epitome troporum ac schematum (c.1540) in connection with the figure of paradiastole. As Quentin Skinner has explored, paradiastole is the technique either of extenuating a vice by describing it as the virtue that it most resembles, or of denigrating virtue to make it appear as a vice. While Skinner has highlighted how paradiastole was deployed in early modern political discourse, my chapter extends Skinner’s analysis to explore notions of diabolic deception in religious writing of the period and in literary works by Milton, Bunyan, and Shakespeare.

In English Puritan practical divinity, the paradiastolic dynamic of satanic rhetoric goes beyond the outward ethical sphere of classical rhetoric into one’s inward spiritual disposition – the devil seeks to confuse carnal presumption for saving faith and vice versa. John Bunyan’s allegorical narrative The Pilgrim’s Progress dramatizes the satanic paradiastolic dynamic in the person of characters such as the Flatterer. In a less overtly religious context, satanic paradiastole surfaces in the works of Shakespeare, both in verbal references to the devil, and in the characterisation of devilish human manipulators. I also suggest that satanic paradiastole offers a key to the interpretive crux in John Milton’s Paradise Lost in which Satan resolves, “Evil, be thou my good.”

Published in Luther and Calvinism: Image and Reception of Martin Luther in the History and Theolo... more Published in Luther and Calvinism: Image and Reception of Martin Luther in the History and Theology of Calvinism, ed. Herman J. Selderhuis and J. Marius J. Lange van Ravenswaay (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017), 379–407.

Chapter downloadable for $6 US from publisher, or contact me if interested:
http://www.vr-elibrary.de/doi/abs/10.13109/9783666552625.379#.WVPlUWjyvIU
(First 413 hits for draft conference paper under revision.)

This article identifies a biblical allusion in John Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis not previously noted... more This article identifies a biblical allusion in John Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis not previously noted. It argues that Dryden describes the looting undertaken by Sir Robert Holmes’s sailors in their raid on the Vlie estuary in terms that associate them with Hophni and Phinehas, the sacrilegious sons of the high priest Eli, called “sons of Belial” in 1 Samuel. This allusion subverts the propaganda function of the poem by calling into question the morality of England’s economic and imperial expansion, and lends credence to the suggestion of Dutch writers that the Great Fire of London represents divine retribution for “Holmes’s Bonfire.”

‘Francis Bacon and the Rhetorical Reordering of Reality’, Rhetor, 6 (2016), 1–17. Online open acc... more ‘Francis Bacon and the Rhetorical Reordering of Reality’, Rhetor, 6 (2016), 1–17. Online open access journal, freely available http://cssr-scer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Rhetor-6-1-Francis-Bacon-Parry.pdf . (First 1,871 hits here pertain to pre-publication conference paper.)

Abstract:
Francis Bacon is accused by some of fragmenting a unified vision of the world by focusing on the empirical observation of small particulars. In a similar way, older scholarship sees Bacon as opposed to the flowing discourse of Ciceronian rhetoric in favour of disconnected aphorisms. These are parallel oversimplifications of Bacon. Bacon himself uses Ciceronian style in his critique of Ciceronian excess, and while, for Bacon, verbal rhetoric is of no use in establishing truth, it is vital to the transmission of truth to a wider audience. Rhetoric thus has a crucial role in the collaborative project outlined by Bacon of obtaining and putting to work true knowledge of the world in order to recover the dominion over creation that humanity lost at the Fall.
Similarly, Bacon’s emphasis on deriving knowledge from empirical observation rather than inherited intellectual frameworks is not intended to fragment knowledge, but rather to begin the process of reconstituting the whole body of human knowledge on a sound footing. This process of specific observations gradually joining together is paralleled by bare aphorisms joining together to form more connected discourse. Far from advocating a free play of signifiers with no resolution, Bacon’s intellectual project is intensely teleological, although it is a project whose telos lies beyond the capacity of one person and beyond the scope of one lifetime to accomplish. We should not be prematurely satisfied as if the temple of wisdom is complete before this so, but we may enjoy provisional pleasures along the way.
Keywords: Francis Bacon, rhetoric, Novum Organum, prose style, aphorisms, rhetoric of science.

""This article examines the texts recounting the trials of Anne Askew (c.1521- 1546) and Anne Hut... more ""This article examines the texts recounting the trials of Anne Askew (c.1521- 1546) and Anne Hutchinson (c.1591-1643). Anne Askew was burnt for eucharistic views contravening Henry VIII’s Six Articles, whilst Anne Hutchinson was a dissident exiled from the Puritan colony of New England. Scholarship on these two Annes usually focuses either on gender roles or on doctrinal controversy. This article proposes that gender and doctrine are intertwined in the concepts of activity and passivity invoked in these narratives and expressed through the metaphors of sowing seed, pregnancy and birth. These metaphors echo, in unsettling ways, Aristotle, Luther and the Bible.

Key words: heresy trials, female dissidents, Anne Askew, Anne Hutchinson""

Problems of Literary Genres/Zagadnienia Rodzajów Literackich, 58/116.2 (2015), 13–28. Freely avai... more Problems of Literary Genres/Zagadnienia Rodzajów Literackich, 58/116.2 (2015), 13–28. Freely available at http://cejsh.icm.edu.pl/cejsh/element/bwmeta1.element.desklight-c48eeea9-899b-4734-869c-fb4145945fd3 .

Abstract:
Many early modern writers were fascinated by the notion of the Adamic language in which Adam named the animals, a language that many believed could express the essence of things perfectly. Umberto Eco has displayed a recurrent interest in Adamic language in both his scholarship and his fiction, and this article pays tribute to Eco through placing his work in conversation with a number of scholarly fields in which the idea of Adamic language occurs, including studies of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, the Qur’an and Islamic tradition, the history of science, and early Mormonism. The article concludes by challenging some of the theoretical assumptions made about Adamic language, both by Eco and in early modern discussions, through a rereading of Adam’s speech in Genesis 2.

Religious Diaspora in Early Modern Europe: Strategies of Exile, ed. Timothy Fehler, Greta Kroeker, Charles Parker, and Jonathan Ray (Pickering and Chatto, 2014), 47-60., Jan 2014

The Glass, 25 (Spring 2013), 3-17.

Notes and Queries, 61.3 (September 2014), 377-380. Available to subscribers at http://nq.oxfordjournals.org/content/61/3/377

The Recorder 22 (Spring 2016), 8–10. A short note on a letter I discovered from John Brown of B... more The Recorder 22 (Spring 2016), 8–10.

A short note on a letter I discovered from John Brown of Bedford (Bunyan's 19th century biographer and successor as pastor to the Bedford Independent congregation), to J.B. Lightfoot, bishop of Durham and noted New Testament/patristics scholar. The letter is stuck into a copy of Brown's biography in the possession of the Cambridge Divinity faculty library, whose pages (as of the time of writing) have been cut only partway through.

Freely available at https://johnbunyansociety.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/2016-recorder1.pdf

An introduction to the religious history and ideas that form a background to Milton's writing. Pa... more An introduction to the religious history and ideas that form a background to Milton's writing. Part of Darkness Visible, a web resource introducing Milton's Paradise Lost and its contexts to first-time readers. Top Google hit for "Milton and religion" (as of 28th November 2014). Freely available at http://darknessvisible.christs.cam.ac.uk/religion.html

An article on Milton's student years at Christ's College, Cambridge. Part of a souvenir programme... more An article on Milton's student years at Christ's College, Cambridge. Part of a souvenir programme I edited for a performance of Milton's Comus and a 'reply' masque by John Kinsella at Christ's College marking Milton's quatercentenary in 2008. This article is found on pages 9 and 10 of the PDF freely available at http://milton.christs.cam.ac.uk/comusprogramme.pdf .

An overview of the biblical narrative with particular reference to the use of the Bible by John M... more An overview of the biblical narrative with particular reference to the use of the Bible by John Milton. Part of Darkness Visible, a web resource introducing Milton's Paradise Lost and its contexts to first-time readers. Freely available at http://darknessvisible.christs.cam.ac.uk/religion_bible.html .

MPhil dissertation, University of Cambridge, 2006

Recent critical schools have sought to replace an essentialist model of selfhood with various per... more Recent critical schools have sought to replace an essentialist model of selfhood with various performative selves. Donne’s treatment of identity involves both essentialist and performative dimensions, which can be associated with the etymology of ‘individual’ (individuum) and ‘person’ (persona) respectively. The individuum-model is that of the essential self distinct from others, which Donne associates with the self-reflexive turn distinguishing humanity from other creatures. The persona-model is that of the self in relation to others, playing a given role in a given context, hence the ambiguities of the relationships between Donne’s speakers and the various others with whom they relate.

These two models are in a dialectical tension which can lead to disintegration either through the isolation of the individuum from the social context which gives it significance or the dissolving of the persona into its context such that it loses its distinct identity. This danger feeds into Donne’s preoccupation with the concept of annihilation. The dialectic is resolved through love, which entails a going out from one’s self to be joined with another and thus a kind of death and rebirth figured by the exchange of breath in a kiss. This process of mutual interpenetration echoes motifs in Trinitarian theology, which Donne expounded in later life and which may have been present in his earlier thinking.

Renaissance Quarterly, 65.4 (Winter 2012), 1334-35.

Bulletin of the Society for Renaissance Studies, 30.1 (April 2013), 33-36. Freely available at http://www.rensoc.org.uk/sites/default/files/april%202103-130313.pdf

The Glass, 25 (Spring 2013), 62-64.

An online learning resource for students and teachers of Milton's 'Paradise Lost'.