Conclusion:
Conclusion:
Truth and consequences
In the seventeenth-century Anglophone world, theological and historical conditions pressured identity towards a stable, religiously confirmed articulation and then aimed to hold religious affiliation to a congruence with nationhood. Despite these forces, the period ended not with a triumphant reintegration of the Protestant body ecclesiastical-political, but with the failure to reconfigure a comprehensive Protestant state church. Even so, a new way of thinking about the meaning of one’s life took hold. Personal conscience was recognized as an unimpeachable arbiter of authentic selfhood, but with a zone of authority that would be increasingly circumscribed. The destabilizing force of the radically religious was a strong catalyst for the rewriting of social contracts among related cultures. First-person witnessing became an integral element in the writing of history of nonconformity. As a precursor to the novel, it also provided a strong template for narrative forms.
Keywords: seventeenth-century Anglophone world, conscience, toleration, comprehension, precursor to the novel, history of nonconformity
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
