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A Certain Blindness: Romance, Providence, and Calvin in John Barclay’s Argenis

A Certain Blindness: Romance, Providence, and Calvin in John Barclay’s Argenis <p>Abstract:</p><p>Most criticism of John Barclay’s <i>Argenis</i> (1621)—often cited as the most influential romance of the seventeenth century—focuses on the romance’s topical allusions and political arguments; certainly, the neoclassical romance’s political dialogues and use of allegory invite such readings. However, focus on the romance as a roman à clef has neglected the romance’s formal innovations. Bringing together romance form and topical engagement, I argue that Barclay’s romance attempts to formally realize divine providence, highlighting the reader’s initial ignorance in order to foreground God’s omniscience. This attempt at the formal realization of providence not only provides theological justification for the genre’s characteristic waywardness; it also represents Barclay’s entry into debates over Calvinism in the early decades of the seventeenth century, when the French Wars of Religion and the Synod of Dort highlighted the immediacy of the Calvinist question for European intellectuals. Barclay’s formal demonstration of providence, coupled with his allusive polemic, allows him to present and refine an alternative understanding of divine foreknowledge which also accounts for the efficacy of human action—a moral particularly relevant to Barclay’s contemporary readers, beset by an increasing awareness of the instability of their world.</p> http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Studies in Philology University of North Carolina Press

A Certain Blindness: Romance, Providence, and Calvin in John Barclay’s Argenis

Zhang, Rachel Dunn
Studies in Philology , Volume 116 (2) – Apr 3, 2019
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Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © The University of North Carolina Press.
ISSN
1543-0383

Abstract

<p>Abstract:</p><p>Most criticism of John Barclay’s <i>Argenis</i> (1621)—often cited as the most influential romance of the seventeenth century—focuses on the romance’s topical allusions and political arguments; certainly, the neoclassical romance’s political dialogues and use of allegory invite such readings. However, focus on the romance as a roman à clef has neglected the romance’s formal innovations. Bringing together romance form and topical engagement, I argue that Barclay’s romance attempts to formally realize divine providence, highlighting the reader’s initial ignorance in order to foreground God’s omniscience. This attempt at the formal realization of providence not only provides theological justification for the genre’s characteristic waywardness; it also represents Barclay’s entry into debates over Calvinism in the early decades of the seventeenth century, when the French Wars of Religion and the Synod of Dort highlighted the immediacy of the Calvinist question for European intellectuals. Barclay’s formal demonstration of providence, coupled with his allusive polemic, allows him to present and refine an alternative understanding of divine foreknowledge which also accounts for the efficacy of human action—a moral particularly relevant to Barclay’s contemporary readers, beset by an increasing awareness of the instability of their world.</p>

Journal

Studies in Philology – University of North Carolina Press

Published: Apr 3, 2019

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