Lancelot Andrewes's Sacramental Wordplay

Almost from the moment of his death, the literary reputation of Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester began the precipitous decline from which it has yet to recover. Although regarded by his contemporaries as the finest preacher of the age, the density of his prose style – and, more particularly, his invariable habit of punning in the pulpit – alienated Andrewes's sermons from the tastes of subsequent generations. It is the aim of this article to demonstrate and explore the theological foundations of this wordplay – to suggest that Andrewes's punning is the expression of a fundamentally sacramental imagination. It proposes, finally, that the verbal texture of his sermons can both illuminate and be illuminated by a closer study of Andrewes's devotional imperatives.