| dc.description.abstract | This study explores practices of forgiveness in post-Reformation England in light of the rejection of the Sacrament of Penance. I argue that forgiveness for 16th-century English Protestants was a communal technology and a means of knowledge production, one that was used to distinguish genuine members of the body of Christ from perceived antichristian interlopers. My research also shows that forgiving and reading, particularly Bible reading, are presented as acts of interpretation that must each culminate with Christian charity and faith in God. In this study, therefore, I examine literary representations of forgiveness and habits of reading with the purpose of tracing some of the connections between forgiving, reading, epistemology, and understandings of community in early modern England. Reading forgiveness as a hermeneutic technique, and not a purely theological concept, demonstrates that textual interpretation and forgiveness between people were of a piece in post-Reformation England. While early modern scholarship can tend to read texts purely as texts, my evidence exposes previously underappreciated links between Protestant textual interpretation and confessional practice, and it suggests that 16th-century English logocentrism is more focused on the unfolding of the textual logos in the world than we thought. This study reveals a fundamental interdependence and homology between interactions with text and community formation in post-Reformation England—and the reason for this connection between reading and living with others is that forgiveness is a defining feature for each. | en |
