\u27The soul in paraphrase\u27: Early modern lyric and the Psalms

What effects did the translation of the Psalms have on poets who were writing in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? In early modern England, many poets turned to the Psalter, both to translate it and as a model for original compositions. In this dissertation, I trace the interaction between early modern humanist Bibles, as well as translations and editions of the Bible in English and French, and the work of the poets Clement Marot, Philip Sidney, Mary Sidney the Countess of Pembroke, George Herbert and John Milton. The shift in views of authority, found in such Bibles as the Alcala Polyglot and the Walton Polyglot, enabled the reader to take a decisive role in textual interpretation. This active role for the reader resonated in the increasing interiority of the subjectivity developing in the lyric poetry of this period. This dissertation contends that the subjectivity in the lyric poetry of this period would not have been achieved without the cultural shift brought about by the Protestant Reformation, and specifically the reading practices created by the Bibles it produced. Since Biblical times, Psalms have been seen to have a double valence, both a public liturgical and a private devotional nature. It is in the privileging of solely the private aspect of the Psalter that we can see a cultural shift in the early modern period. The pronounced interiority of Clement Marot\u27s and Philip and Mary Sidney\u27s psalm translations culminate in George Herbert\u27s attempts to create a space for individual worship within the text of The Temple, and in Milton\u27s valorization of the inward gifts of Samson Agonistes which make Samson a fit subject to be memorialized in lyric poetry. The connection between the reading practices required by new Bibles and expected by poetic texts is considerable and significant. This dissertation traces the trajectory of these reading practices by examination of the material of Biblical texts themselves alongside poetic works. This conjunction enables one to see how the Psalms helped to transform the interiorized devotional lyric into more secular types of literature and creates an understanding of subjectivity in the early modern period