Tag Archives | review

Correll, Mark R. “The Faustian Century: German Literature and Culture in the Age of Luther and Faustus.” Fides Et Historia45, no. 2 (Summer, 2013): 125-127.

Abstract: The Faustian Century uses the Faust legends to cast a vision of the sixteenth century from the perspective of a mature Lutheran hegemony at the century’s end rather than the more familiar viewpoint from the origins of the Protestant movement. These authors conceive that Lutheranism in power gave a stronger definition to the era than Luther in ascendency. The Faustian Century uses the Faust legend as a lens through which to see this troubled time of religious violence and legally enforced orthodoxy. While a historical Faust may have lived and worked in the first half of the sixteenth century, the popular vision of Faust that inspired Marlowe, Goethe, Mann, and others was initiated a half century later by various anonymous authors in the central Holy Roman Empire: “Historia vnd geschieht Doctor Johannis Faustj des Zauberers” (ca. 1572-1585), the expanded narrative Historia von D. Johann Fausten / dem weitbeschreyten Zauberer und Schwarzkünstler (1587), and the third but less important Faust narrative of 1599 by Georg Rudolf Widmann, D. Iohannes Faustus ein weitberuffener Schwarzkünstler vnd Ertzzäuberer (hereafter referred to collectively as the Eaustbuch).

Correll, Mark R. “The Reformation of Feeling: Shaping the Religious Emotions in Early Modern Germany.” Fides et Historia 43, no. 1 (December 1, 2011): 73–75.

Abstract: In a well-written study, The Reformation of Feeling: Shaping the Religious Emotions in Early Modern Germany, Susan C. Karant-Nunn has introduced a new lens by which to study the Reformations. Karant-Nunn takes a broad range of published sermons from pre-and post-Tridentine Catholics, as well as both Lutheran and Reformed Protestants, and reads them for their affective language. In doing this, she confirms and deepens many other historical interpretations of the Reformation era.

Correll, Mark R. “A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy.” Fides et Historia 43, no. 1 (December 1, 2011): 81–84.

Abstract: The Enlightenment has fallen on hard times as an ideological force for change in history. When it is not simply ignored in the developments of early modern Europe, it is described as a product of social forces. In this sharply written essay, A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy, Jonathan Israel sets out an ambitious project to restore the Enlightenment as the central focus for the entire historiography of the eighteenth century and the French Revolution. This work functions as an introduction to his much larger three volume set published by the Oxford University Press. This book is meant for a broader audience than his other works, it has a sharply polemical tone, and his argument does not digress into fine detail typical of a scholarly volume. Nevertheless, it is a powerfully effective challenge to early modern historiography.