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Nigel Smith, Perfection Proclaimed: Language and Literature in English Radical Religion 1640-1660. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. £40.
It is good to see a serious study of the language of those religious enthusiasts who were until quite recently dismissed or marginalised in histories of English Literature as 'fanatics'. Writing with a full consciousness of recent critical approaches, yet avoiding unnecessary jargon, Nigel Smith rightly sees that it is the language of the period which must first be understood as a vehicle for ideas - the literature follows from that linguistic context, and authors are less important as individuals than as examples of a general renewal of vivid expression. This language is shaped, says Smith, by the experience, not just of conversion, but of 'progression from unbelief and sinfulness to grace' - a useful pointer towards Bunyan, who of course does not figure largely in a work which deals with the period up to 1660. But the background from which Bunyan emerged is clearly here for all to see.
Smith carefully establishes the forms of expression used by these writers...