id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentences	flesch	summary	cache	txt
work_xlch5el4ozhn7gqpya3xrelpce	Stephen Spencer	Unknowing Fanaticism: Reformation Literatures of Self-Annihilation. Ross Lerner. New York: Fordham University Press, 2019. 232 pp. $30	2020	3	.pdf	application/pdf	1490	76	48	Unknowing Fanaticism: Reformation Literatures of Self-Annihilation. and rational politics, Lerner aims to show how early modern poets "participate in or poets like Spenser, Donne, and Milton are keener on exploring the irreconcilable tension fanaticism poses between divine will and human agency through creative manipulations of form. The book begins with discussions of two poetic forms in relation to fanaticism: allegorical epic and sacred lyric. Similarly, the chapter on Donne details a poet assiduously working, but self-consciously failing, to contain destructive impulses within the lyric form. turn, Lerner connects these poetic experiments to Donne's unique theorization of martyrdom as self-annihilation that approaches, but never quite reaches, divine will. focus on poetry, one that highlights the equivocal nature of the poems in its demonstration of Hobbes's definition of fanaticism as madness. Samson's violent act, Milton puts the onus on his readers to meditate on the unknowability of fanaticism's relation to divine order.	./cache/work_xlch5el4ozhn7gqpya3xrelpce.pdf	./txt/work_xlch5el4ozhn7gqpya3xrelpce.txt