- Title Pages
- Illustration
- Dedication
- Acnowledgements
- List of Illustrations
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 After the Revolution
- 2 The Education of a Dissenter
- 3 Meditating on Matters Spiritual and Secular
- 4 Marriage and Rebellion
- 5 Financial Woes and Recovery
- 6 Propagandist for William III
- 7 <i>The True-Born Englishman</i> and Other Satires
- 8 An Age of Plot and Deceit, of Contradiction and Paradox
- 9 From Pilloried Libeller to Government Propagandist
- 10 ‘Writing History Sheet by Sheet’
- 11 From Public Journalist to Lunar Philosopher
- 12 Defoe as Spy and Whig Propagandist
- 13 A ‘True Spy’ in Scotland
- 14 In Limbo Between Causes and Masters
- 15 Journalism and History in ‘An Age of Mysteries and Paradoxes’<sup>1</sup>
- 16 How to Sell Out While Keeping One’s Integrity (Somewhat) Intact in That ‘Lunatick Age’<sup>1</sup>
- 17 These Dangerous Times
- 18 ‘A Miserable Divided Nation’<sup>1</sup>
- 19 A Change of Monarchs and the Whig’s Revenge
- 20 Times When Honest Men Must Reserve Themselves for Better Fortunes
- 21 Corrector General of the Press: A Digression on Defoe as a Journalist
- 22 The Year Before <i>Robinson Crusoe:</i>
- 23 <i>Robinson Crusoe</i> and the Variability of Life
- 24 After <i>Crusoe</i>:
- 25 Creating Fictional Worlds
- 26 Describing Britain in the 1720s
- 27 Enter Henry Baker
- 28 Last Productive Years
- 29 Sinking Under the Weight of Affliction
- Works Cited
- Index
Meditating on Matters Spiritual and Secular
Meditating on Matters Spiritual and Secular
- Chapter:
- (p.51) 3 Meditating on Matters Spiritual and Secular
- Source:
- Daniel Defoe: Master of Fictions
- Author(s):
Maximillian E. Novak
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
On October 17, 1678, the body of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey was found behind some bushes on the south side of Primrose Hill. As a London magistrate, Godfrey had been hearing accusations made by Titus Oates and Ezerel Tonge concerning a plot to murder Charles II, accompanied by a massacre of Protestants, and an invasion of Ireland by the French. Almost everyone in the nation was convinced that the Jesuits had hatched a conspiracy to slaughter great numbers of Protestants and return England to the control of the Catholic Church. On February 20, 1681, Daniel Defoe was in London listening to the first of a series of sermons delivered by John Collins. Collins’s sermons, along with a series of poetic meditations that record his inner spiritual struggles at the time, in Defoe’s hand are preserved in the Huntington Library in San Marino. That Defoe adapted his poetry to the new poetic forms of his time does not mean that the poems were not intensely personal.
Keywords: Daniel Defoe, England, Edmund Berry Godfrey, Jesuits, poetry, sermons, meditations, John Collins, massacre, Charles II
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- Title Pages
- Illustration
- Dedication
- Acnowledgements
- List of Illustrations
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 After the Revolution
- 2 The Education of a Dissenter
- 3 Meditating on Matters Spiritual and Secular
- 4 Marriage and Rebellion
- 5 Financial Woes and Recovery
- 6 Propagandist for William III
- 7 <i>The True-Born Englishman</i> and Other Satires
- 8 An Age of Plot and Deceit, of Contradiction and Paradox
- 9 From Pilloried Libeller to Government Propagandist
- 10 ‘Writing History Sheet by Sheet’
- 11 From Public Journalist to Lunar Philosopher
- 12 Defoe as Spy and Whig Propagandist
- 13 A ‘True Spy’ in Scotland
- 14 In Limbo Between Causes and Masters
- 15 Journalism and History in ‘An Age of Mysteries and Paradoxes’<sup>1</sup>
- 16 How to Sell Out While Keeping One’s Integrity (Somewhat) Intact in That ‘Lunatick Age’<sup>1</sup>
- 17 These Dangerous Times
- 18 ‘A Miserable Divided Nation’<sup>1</sup>
- 19 A Change of Monarchs and the Whig’s Revenge
- 20 Times When Honest Men Must Reserve Themselves for Better Fortunes
- 21 Corrector General of the Press: A Digression on Defoe as a Journalist
- 22 The Year Before <i>Robinson Crusoe:</i>
- 23 <i>Robinson Crusoe</i> and the Variability of Life
- 24 After <i>Crusoe</i>:
- 25 Creating Fictional Worlds
- 26 Describing Britain in the 1720s
- 27 Enter Henry Baker
- 28 Last Productive Years
- 29 Sinking Under the Weight of Affliction
- Works Cited
- Index
