Wounds, Flesh, and Metaphor in Seventeenth-Century England (PDF)

SARAH COVINGTON is Associate Professor of History at Queens College, The City University of New York, USA.

"Covington's study presents a fluently written and engaging analysis of the imagery of this most bloody, fractured, and scarred period of English history." - American Historical Review"Covington carefully combines contemporary linguistic theory and philosophy of the abject with extensive archival research to demonstrate that metaphor, in Paul Ricoeur s words, 'shatter[s] and increase[s] our sense of reality by shattering and increasing our language.' Likewise, this book increases our sense of the reality of early modern woundedness." - Renaissance Quarterly"Wounds, Flesh, and Metaphor is admirably engaging and thoughtful, bringing a new perspective to study of the civil wars of the 1640s...an investigation of language at the very basic levels of speech and description, but worked through a very contemporary historiographical nexus that leads to a very satisfying study." - The Times Higher Education Supplement

"Covington probes the development of a pervasive and disturbing figure of speech through a broadly informed and richly detailed analysis of key early modern political and cultural texts. Covington's sophisticated comparison of legal tracts, historical accounts, political polemics,spiritual treatises,and amorous verse shows how they all fuse spectacular images of strength and mutilation in a century of civil war andthus perpetuate and transform older ideas of martyrdom and redemptive suffering." - Richard C. McCoy, Professor of English, Queens College and The Graduate Center, CUNY and author of Alterations of State: Sacred Kingship in the English Reformation

"A fascinating, wide-ranging and - dare I say - penetrating study, combining high theory and close reading with effects so powerful they sometimes distress, even wound." - Diane Purkiss, Keble College, Oxford University and author of Literature, Politics and Gender in the English Civil War