Early Modern Asceticism: Literature, Religion, and Austerity in the English Renaissance

"McGrath’s Early Modern Asceticism offers scholars a view that complicates some of the monolithic claims about influential writers and their views on religion and sexuality, which leads to a more nuanced appreciation of the intricacies of these ideas. The extensive knowledge McGrath displays about early modern theology provides an instructive context for understanding some of the variations and contradictions on display in the literature from the period."

Adrienne L. Eastwood, San Jose State University, Journal of British Studies

"Early Modern Asceticism makes important contributions to the study of the religious life of seventeenth-century England and complicates conventional accounts of several of the period’s central authors in valuable ways. It will be of interest to scholars of early modern literature and religion, and will be enriching reading for students of the various authors it analyzes."

Travis Decook, Carleton University, Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme

"Patrick J. McGrath explores the surprisingly varied ways that asceticism persisted after the Reformation; one of the pleasures of this project is the way it upends assumptions about how asceticism persists and who might be attracted to it."

Brooke Conti, Department of English, Cleveland State University

"Patrick J. McGrath’s discussion of asceticism makes a definite, significant contribution to research on the relationship between early modern religion and selfhood – an impressive accomplishment, given that many other scholars have discussed this relationship in other terms."

James Kuzner, Department of English, Brown University