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Rhetoric and Meaning in Religio Laici

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Jim W. Corder*
Affiliation:
Texas Christian University, Fort Worth

Extract

Analysis of the rhetorical structure of Religio Laici, by directing attention to the form and development of the poem, clarifies its meaning. Such an analysis, further, enables us to accommodate equally appealing but apparently contradictory readings of the poem.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1967

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References

1 See Louis I. Bredvold, The Intellectual Milieu of John Dryden (Ann Arbor, 1934); Thomas H. Fujimura, “Dryden's Religio Laici: An Anglican Poem,” PMLA, lxxvi (September 1961), 205–217; and Victor M. Hamm, “Dryden's Religio Laici and Roman Catholic Apologetics,” PMLA, lxxx (June 1965), 190–198.

2 Donald L. Clark, Rhetoric in Greco-Roman Education (New York, 1957), p. 228.

3 Lillian Feder, “John Dryden's Use of Classical Rhetoric,” PMLA, Lxix (December 1954), 1271.

4 James Kinsley, ed., The Poems of John Dryden (Oxford, 1958), i, 311. All further references are to this edition.