Bold Conscience

Joshua R. Held

ISBN 10: 0817361111 / ISBN 13: 9780817361112

Published by The University of Alabama Press, US, 2023

About this Item

How the conscience in early modern England emerged as a fulcrum for public actionBold Conscience chronicles the shifting conception of conscience in early modern England, as it evolved from a faculty of restraint-what Shakespeare labels "coward conscience"-to one of bold and forthright self-assertion. The concept of conscience played an important role in post-Reformation England, from clerical leaders to laymen, not least because of its central place in determining loyalties during the English Civil War and the regicide of King Charles I. Yet the most complex and lasting perspectives on conscience emerged from deliberately literary voices-William Shakespeare, John Donne, and John Milton. Joshua Held argues that literary texts by these authors transform the idea of conscience as a private, shameful state to one of boldness fit for navigating both royal power and common dissent in the public realm. Held tracks the increasing political power of conscience from Shakespeare's Hamlet and Henry VIII to Donne's court sermons and Milton's Areopagitica, showing finally that in Paradise Lost, Milton roots boldness in the inner paradise of a pure, common conscience. Applying a fine-grain analysis to literary England from about 1601 to 1667, this study also looks back to the 1520s, to Luther's theological foundations of the concept, and forward to 1689, to Locke's transformation of the idea alongside the term "consciousness." Ultimately, Held's study shows how conscience emerges at once as a bulwark against absolute sovereignty and as a stronghold of personal certainty.

Seller Inventory # LU-9780817361112

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Bold Conscience
• Publisher: The University of Alabama Press, US
• Publication Date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0817361111
• ISBN 13: 9780817361112
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 144 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Traces how conscience―inner moral conviction―came to shape public life, fueling martyrdom, free speech, and political revolts

Bold Conscience: Luther to Shakespeare to Milton is a sweeping, original study of how conscience became one of the most powerful ideas in early modern England. Tracing the emergence of what Joshua R. Held calls the “bold conscience,” the book shows how inner moral conviction moved from the realm of private guilt to public action, fueling debates about authority, obedience, free speech, and resistance. By placing conscience at the center of literary, religious, and political conflict, Bold Conscience reveals a vital intellectual throughline linking the Reformation to the birth of modern ideas of liberty and toleration.

The book unfolds chronologically, beginning with Martin Luther and Henry VIII and moving through Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Henry VIII, John Donne’s court sermons, and John Milton’s polemical and poetic works, including Areopagitica and Paradise Lost. Each chapter combines close literary reading with historical and theological analysis, showing how conscience operates across genres―drama, sermon, pamphlet, and epic poetry. Joshua R. Held is a distinguished scholar of early modern literature whose work bridges literary criticism, intellectual history, and religious studies, bringing clarity and narrative energy to complex debates.

Bold Conscience will appeal to scholars and students of early modern literature, Shakespeare, Milton, and Reformation history, as well as readers interested in the origins of religious freedom and political dissent. It will also engage anyone concerned with how moral conviction shapes public life then and now.

About the Author

Joshua R. Held is assistant professor of English at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. His scholarship has appeared in Studies in Philology, Modern Philology, Milton Studies, and Shakespeare Survey.