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William Hunnis and the success of the Seven Sobs
Author(s) -
Costley King'oo Clare
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
renaissance studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.117
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1477-4658
pISSN - 0269-1213
DOI - 10.1111/rest.12164
Subject(s) - penitential , paraphrase , expansive , chapel , history , literature , reading (process) , classics , philosophy , art , art history , linguistics , compressive strength , materials science , composite material
My article focuses on Seven Sobs of a Sorrowfull Soule for Sinne , an expansive verse paraphrase of the seven Penitential Psalms by William Hunnis, Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal. First published in 1583, this text has been largely overlooked, or mentioned only in passing, by modern scholars. However, it garnered considerable popular interest in its own time, running to a total of fifteen editions by 1636 and earning revenue for several generations of printers. My task is to explore the significance of this huge commercial success for the field of psalm studies, as well as to consider why we have found it difficult to give Hunnis's publication sufficient attention to date. Analysing Seven Sobs in relation to the centuries‐old tradition of praying and commenting on the Penitential Psalms, which elsewhere I have termed ‘penitential hermeneutics’, I elucidate how Hunnis and his publishers were able to propagate a relatively innovative reformist agenda by combining it with long‐standing devotional and interpretive custom. And I argue that the challenge of understanding Hunnis's dilatory (and often tortuous) paraphrase, and the role it played in post‐Reformation England, might highlight the continued importance of reading and theorizing across periods and confessions today.