'A diverse voice, a diverse noise': the book of Genesis in early modern England

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My research explores the intersections between biblical and literary cultures in early modern England. In particular, my project focuses on the book of Genesis as it appeared in English between 1605 and 1667 - a period demarcated by the publication of Josuah Sylvester's 'Devine Weekes' on one side and John Milton's 'Paradise Lost' on the other.During this period, the book of Genesis provided a singular test to vernacular literature. While translations attended to its multivalent language, imaginative renderings turned the text into English verse, and scholarly commentaries unpacked its unparalleled theological significance. Yet critics have rarely examined Genesis in this period. Approaches have tended either to explore the relationship between scripture and major literary works, or to subsume its translation within large-scale biblical projects - from Coverdale to the King James Bible. By contrast, my study explores the variety of ways in which early modern writers engaged with biblical material. Genesis was translated, versified, expounded, sermonised, cut up and pasted back together. My work focuses on this single biblical book to recover a closer sense of the ways in which scriptural texts shifted between these various forms. It will show that scripture was not comprised of a stable series of biblical books, but a network of engagements that generated its singular significance.