Virtue and Knowledge: the Analysis and Portrayal of Moral Choice in Reanissance Thought and Literature

FAIN: FA-11476-76

John M. Evans
Stanford University (Stanford, CA 94305-2004)

Milton (in Paradise Lost) makes a clear distinction between "those who ...sin with full knowledge and those who are deceived because they they do not know what they are doing is a sin." This study, using the resources of the Bodleian Library in Oxford and the British Museum Library in London, will investigate the theories of Renaissance philosophy and theology--a Renaissance view of human nature. Study will probe the co-existence of alternative anatomies of sin, generally associated with the humanists and puritans, one of the central facts of Renaissance intellectual and literary history.