Although there are many books on Johnson's moral and religious thought, none has provided a detailed analysis of his relationship with the ethics and theology of the eighteenth century. This study fills the gap, examining the background to Johnson's views on a wide range of issues debated by the philosophers and divines of his age. Avoiding deceptive generalizations concerning the overall character of the century, Nicholas Hudson emphasizes the ambivalence and contradiction inherent in the orthodoxy which Johnson espoused. Yet this book also challenges the assumption that Johnson's religious...

The Dragon and the Dove makes the original and controversial claim that Thomas Dekker, the author of plays blending satire, hagiography, and propaganda, was a militant Protestant. This study, whilst carefully analysing seven of his plays, takes The Whore of Babylon to be his central work and the definitive militant Protestant play. Militant Protestants were uncompromising in their beliefs and frequently came into conflict with the policies of the Crown. Apocalyptic ideas, and a vision of the international True Church struggling against the dragon of Rome, provide the key to understanding all...

From the beginning of the nineteenth century, the emerging study of language shared with geology certain metaphors - co-existing but mutually incompatible - to describe theories of change. The Tower of Babel, Rise and Fall, Line and Branch were ideas that fed both disciplines; and linguistic study sometimes drew its imagery directly from geology, comparing varieties of language to fossils marking layers of development. At the same time, tension arose between the concept of language as a fixed sign and the wish to endorse it as a tool for change, an unpredictable maker of history.

Metaphors...