Offering new readings of major eary modern English poets such as Spenser, Milton and Donne, Kneidel counters the trend among literary critics to associate early modern religion with Pauline inwardness and self-formation by showing how these writers took Saint Paul as a model of rhetorical skill and political acumen.

GREGORY KNEIDEL is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Connecticut, USA. He has published numerous articles in journals including Renaissance Topologies, English Literary Renaissance, Christianity and Literature, Studies in English Literature and Modern Philology, and contributions to The Milton Encyclopedia, The Age of Milton and The Dictionary of Literary Biography.