The Politics of Revelation in the English Renaissance (review)

259 the book are twelve coloured plates from a variety of illuminated manuscripts, most of which are contemporary with the recipes, showing the harvesting, preparation and consumption of food. This book is valuable for both its gastronomy and its scholarship. As Georges Duby puts it in his foreword: 'Here great serious-mindedness i s fused with lusciousness' (p. ix). Sarah Randies School of English University College, ADFA University ofNew South Wales Richey, Esther Gilman, The Politics ofRevelation in the English Renaissan Columbia and London, University of Missouri Press, 1998; cloth; pp. x, 252; R.R.P. US$37.50. This book examines the way in which literature was used as a forum for commentary on seventeenth-century political events in England. Specifically, i t investigates the way in which certain prophetic images from the books of Daniel and Revelation were represented by writers of prose, poetry and sermons. The study is arranged chronologically and according to author. Separate chapters are devoted to: Spenser; Thomas Brightman and Lancelot Andrewes; Aemilia Lanyer; Donne; Herbert; Milton; Eleanor Davies; Mary Cary, Anna Trapnel and Margaret Fell; and Henry Vaughan. The opening chapter investigates a work well k n o w n for its apocalyptic themes, Spenser's 'Legende of the Knighte of the Redcrosse, or Holinesse'. Richey interprets this work as a response to contemporary debates concerning the English Church, in particular, the debates between Catholics and Presbyterians in the 1580s over what kind of institutional model the church should uphold. Here the characters Una and Redcrosse represent, respectively, the invisible, spiritual dimension of the church and the visible, institutional structure of the church. The protracted engagement (but never marriage) between these characters represents the 'mysterious tension' between the invisible and visible church, something which will unravel over time and over the course of the book. The rest of the book studies different responses to the same 260 Reviews questions of what kind of episcopal hierarchy the church should have, what kinds of ceremonial or unceremonial worship it should have and, in particular, whether prophets have a lay or episcopal status. Radical prophets, conformist churchmen, and noble and middle-class women are all studied, with special attention paid to the late 1620s and early 1630s, a period when apocalyptic interpretations were used to make veiled and not so veiled attacks on kings James and Charles. Rewritings of the Apocalypse provide a range of interpretations of the hidden temple and the w o m a n clothed with the sun, reflecting in the process the political and ecclesiastical priorities of the various authors. Besides its direct contributions to political and ecclesiastical history, this study makes supplementary contributions in other areas. Through focusing on the c o m m o n choice of apocalyptic source material, Richey addresses the question of whether there really was a generic split between the religious poets of the seventeenth century. Given that metaphysical lyrics by Herbert and Donne were inspired by the same apocalyptic sources as the prophetic poems of Spenser and Milton, Richey argues more for similarity than for difference, stressing that the apparently conservative metaphysical poets still managed to participate in volatile political debates through their posing of such questions as: Is the Pope Antichrist? Is the Bride of Christ pure? A n d is the structure of the Temple a suitable model for ecclesiastical reform? This c o m m o n apocalyptic basis behind seventeenth-century poetry suggests that academic attention should best be directed at the differing ecclesiastical and spiritual politics that inform the respective apocalyptic representations, rather than at the less helpful distinction between the 'radical' prophetic and the 'conservative' metaphysical. Another running theme is the question of whether and how women's apocalyptic descriptions were unique. Constrained by the Pauline requirement for female silence and, indeed, by male prophetic authors such as Andrewes w h o reiterated the Pauline passage constantly, w o m e n were forced to devise alternative methods of prophesy. Three chapters are devoted to female authors, both well known and less so, all of w h o m modified the apocalyptic tradition to suit their o w n needs. The chapter on the well known Davies, the most...