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Metaphor, Cure, and Conversion in Early Modern England*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Helen Smith
Helen Smith*
Affiliation:
University of York
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Abstract

One of the most prevalent metaphors for conversion in early modern England was the cure of a diseased soul. This article draws together religious controversy, medical manuals, and individual accounts of conversion to chart the variety of sources that inform this metaphor, from the practical experience of the sickbed to the typological traditions of biblical interpretation. It explores the varied language of spiritual sickness in order to reevaluate both the operations of religious feeling and recent accounts of metaphor as embodied, and suggests instead that conversionary cures open up the category of imagined sensation and the complex connections between bodily and spiritual feeling in this period.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 67 , Issue 2 , Summer 2014 , pp. 473 - 502
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2014

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Footnotes

*

This article was born out of the Arts and Humanities Research Council–funded project Conversion Narratives in Early Modern Europe. I owe a debt of thanks to the project members Simon Ditchfield, Peter Mazur, and Abigail Shinn, who have discussed these ideas on numerous occasions and commented on an early draft. Lieke Stelling, an honorary member of the team, also offered suggestions and has been generous in sharing her ongoing work. Audiences in Leeds, York, and Lausanne provided stimulating feedback on these ideas as they developed. Warm thanks are due to the anonymous readers for Renaissance Quarterly, whose comments were crucial in the final stages, and especially to Brian Cummings, Mark Jenner, and Richard Rowland, who read drafts and offered characteristically perceptive and helpful suggestions. All italics within quotations are found in the originals.

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