The Art of Hearing: English Preachers and their Audiences, 1590-1640

Description

This groundbreaking study of early modern English preaching was the first to take full account of the sermon as heard by the listener as well as uttered by the preacher. It draws on a wide range of printed and manuscript sources, but also seeks to read behind the texts in order to reconstruct what was actually delivered from the pulpit, with due attention to the differences between oral, written and printed versions. In showing how sermons were interpreted and appropriated by their hearers, often in ways that their authors never intended, it poses wider questions about the transmission of religious and political ideas in the post-Reformation period. Offering a richer understanding of sermons as complex and ambiguous texts, and opening up new avenues for their interpretation, it will be essential reading for all students of the religious and cultural history of early modern England.

Arnold Hunt is Curator of Manuscripts at The British Library. He was the co-editor of The Book Trade and its Customers 1450-1900: Historical Essays (1997).

'This wonderful book takes us into one of English preaching's golden ages, and tries to find out what actually happened when preachers stood up and cleared their throats.' The Times Higher Education Supplement 'Beautifully written, with some wonderfully observed allusions to contemporary culture and church life which will resonate with readers ... this is indeed an important book for scholars, and will greatly reward the generalists, preachers and the preached to alike.' Church Times 'A brilliant and original re-examination of the importance of preaching in later Reformation England ... provides an exceptionally stimulating discussion of what came to fill people's minds after the statues had been burned and the altars stripped.' The Times Literary Supplement '... a masterful and highly readable study of 'early modern Protestant preaching' ... has much to enlighten and inspire today's homiletical scholars.' Geoffrey Stevenson, The Expository Times 'In The Art of Hearing, Arnold Hunt provides a fascinating account of preaching in late Elizabethan and early Stuart England. Hunt's book will be of value to all students of religious, cultural, and political life in early modern Britain and to anyone interested in the scholarly study of preaching.' Marty Cowan, Churchman