Radical Religion from Shakespeare to Milton

"This fascinating and well-researched boook is an important contribution to a sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-century literary tradition... only praise for her general clarity of style and for the accompanying apparatus of useful notes, bibliography, and extraordinarly detailed index." Sixteenth Century Journal "Poole's eye-opening book challenges traditional definitions of Puritanism and contends that radical 16th- and 17th-century reformers were most often represented as drunken, gluttonous, and licentious in literature...she points out areting parallels between movements and literary representations of figures of nonconformity." Choice "Despite these reservations, Poole's argument about Falstaff is an intriguing one, as are all her arguments in this well-researched study. Poole's book should prove valuable to any reader to any reader interested in religious and early modern literature." Albion "Poole masterfully uncovers and links together a group of lively and diverse materials that treat puritans as grotesque and aberant... Radical Religion fills a significant and long-standing gap in the history of represntation, as previous booklength treatments of satiric images of puritans date back to the 1940s...Kristen Poole makes a major contribution to discussions of religion, literature, and culture in the early modern period. This groundbreaking book should be of considerable value and interest to literary scholars and historians alike." Journal of English and Germanic Philology