The Seventeenth-Century English Hymn: A Mode for Sacred and Secular Concerns

Seventeenth-century England witnessed the birth of the modern era and the hymns of that age reflect the spirit of those tumultuous days of transition. Present in these hymns are expressions of civic and religious strife, radical political upheavals, echoes of paganism, fragments of scientific thought along with images of social conditions, expressions of personal devotion, and bountiful measures of Christian doctrine. The work demonstrates that hymns bear the marks of the culture from which they spring and recognizes the connection of these hymns to the wider body of 17th century literature.