Walton's Lives: Conformist Commemorations and the Rise of Biography

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Oxford University Press, 2001 - Biography & Autobiography - 353 pages
This book argues that Walton's practice, in his Lives, was crucial in shaping modern expectations of biography, including issues such as how it should be organized, how it should treat evidence, how seriously it should regard narrative coherence, and most particularly in the modern expectation of an intimate relationship between author, reader, and subject. Martin considers Walton's biographical ethics in relation to the tributary genres influencing him as they emerged from post-Reformation commendatory practice after 1546, most particularly classical funeral oratory and the emergent Protestant funeral sermon, the Plutarchan parallel, the didactic Character, martyrological narrative, and finally Walton's direct model, the exemplary biographical commemoration of the conformist minister.

From inside the book

Contents

Commemorative Strategies
3
Reading Plutarch Writing Lives
32
Godly Prototypes
66
Waltons Lives of Donne and Herbert
167
Waltons Lives of Hooker and Sanderson
227
Waltons Legacy
300
Bibliography
316
Index
339
Copyright

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About the author (2001)

JessicaMartinFellow and College LecturerTrinity College, Cambridge.