Milton Quarterly review of ‘Psalm Culture and Early Modern English Literature’
Psalm Culture and Early Modern English Literature - Hannibal Hamlin
Beth Quitslund
Milton Quarterly 40 (3), 250-251.
In his informative and wide-ranging survey of literary Psalms and Psalm translation in early modern England, Hannibal Hamlin makes two related arguments. The first is that “the translation, or ‘Englishing,’ of the biblical Psalms substantially shaped the culture of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England” (1). At face value, this is a very large historiographic bite to chew, and in fact, Psalm Culture is interested primarily (although not exclusively) with the specifically literary uses of the Psalms in English. The second contention is that many metrical psalm paraphrases are complex works of literary art, and thus deserve the kinds of critical analysis and respect that we give to the “original” lyrics of the period.
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