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Spenser, Donne, and the theology of joy.(Edmund Spenser, John Donne)(Critical essay)

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From: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900
Date: 20060101
Author:Potkay, Adam

 
  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, 
  gentleness, goodness, faith, [m]eekness, temperance: against such 
  there is no law. 
  --Galatians 5:22-3 (1) 

Joy becomes an anxious concern during the Protestant Reformation in both Germany and, my focus here, England. English Protestant writing of the early modern era vividly evokes both joy and, conversely, the threat of joylessness in Christian life. Yet the importance of joy to Christianity and particularly Protestant Christianity, although recognized by theologians, has gone largely unnoticed by ...

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