The Art of Hearing
English Preachers and their Audiences, 1590–1640

This book assesses the effectiveness of the sermon as a key means of transmitting religious ideas.

Arnold Hunt (Author)

9781107679825, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 6 November 2014

424 pages
23 x 15.3 x 2.3 cm, 0.65 kg

'In The Art of Hearing, Arnold Hunt provides a fascinating account of preaching in late Elizabethan and early Stuart England. Hunt's book will be of value to all students of religious, cultural, and political life in early modern Britain and to anyone interested in the scholarly study of preaching.' Marty Cowan, Churchman

This groundbreaking study of early modern English preaching was the first to take full account of the sermon as heard by the listener as well as uttered by the preacher. It draws on a wide range of printed and manuscript sources, but also seeks to read behind the texts in order to reconstruct what was actually delivered from the pulpit, with due attention to the differences between oral, written and printed versions. In showing how sermons were interpreted and appropriated by their hearers, often in ways that their authors never intended, it poses wider questions about the transmission of religious and political ideas in the post-Reformation period. Offering a richer understanding of sermons as complex and ambiguous texts, and opening up new avenues for their interpretation, it will be essential reading for all students of the religious and cultural history of early modern England.

Introduction
1. The theory of preaching
2. The art of hearing
3. From pulpit to print
4. Reconstructing the audience
5. Preaching and the people
6. Reading sermons politically: criticism and controversy
7. Reading sermons theologically: predestination and the pulpit
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Church history [HRCC2], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], British & Irish history [HBJD1]