Tudor metrical psalmody and the English Reformations

This work is a study of Tudor metrical psalmody, an historical genre or literary kind that emerged and flourished during the sixteenth century, consonant with the emergence and progress of the English Reformation(s). Working from the premise that Tudor metrical psalms were at once prayer, "poesie," and polemic, I examine the ways in which these texts participated in the social discourse of the period.After establishing that Tudor metrical psalmody is a historical genre or literary kind whose five essential characteristics bind its constituent members together, I provide two additional interpretive readings of Tudor psalmody. The second is radically materialist, arguing that the corpus of Tudor psalmody should be deciphered "as a progression of 'symbolic resolutions' of the social contradictions which initially engendered them." In other words, metrical psalm translations of the period are fantasized resolutions of the material and doctrinal struggles of the Reformation.The third reading approaches Tudor psalmody as a body of devotional works and Confessions of Faith. My point of departure is George Steiner's declaration in Real Presences that "any coherent understanding of what language is and how language performs, that any coherent account of the capacity of human speech to communicate meaning and feeling is, in the final analysis, underwritten by the assumption of God's presence." Conceived and nurtured on the front lines and, indeed, in the midst of the Reformation(s)' bloody altercations, early Tudor psalmody declared itself the vanguard in the struggle to maintain God's presence in the semiotic "prayingfield" by approaching the rite of psalm-translation as one of transubstantiation. Later psalmists of the century mediated the aesthetic demands of "poesie" and the theological priorities of strict Calvinism, thereby establishing a realm of prayer within which we now include works by devotional poets such as Donne and Herbert.This study is the first comprehensive examination of Tudor metrical psalmody as a literary kind, in addition to being the first sustained exploration of the kind's complicity in Reformation polemics. It also demonstrates that Tudor metrical psalmody underwent an evolution during the course of the sixteenth century fully consonant with the theological and aesthetic developments of the Age.For ease of reference, I have transcribed and appended to this thesis several psalms to which reference is made within the body of the thesis.Finally, I acknowledge my indebtedness to Rivkah Zim's ground-breaking volume, English Metrical Psalms: Poetry as Praise and Prayer, 1535--1601 . Considerable inspiration was gained from her work