“This Musique Hath Life in It”: Harmony in Lancelot Andrewes’s Preaching

Abstract

abstract:This essay examines the significance of music, especially notions of musical harmony, to the preaching of the influential English clergyman Lancelot Andrewes (1555–1626). Natalya Din-Kariuki argues that Andrewes reconfigured classical and early modern understandings of harmony, ranging from the legend of Pythagoras’s discovery of harmony to the new form of the verse anthem, to create a unique set of controlling metaphors with which to speak from the pulpit. By placing his preaching within the context of discourses of music, especially the debates about church music that took place in early modern England, she demonstrates connections between Andrews’s engagements with music and elements of his “avant-garde conformity,” including his ceremonialism, his ideals of Christian community, and his view of the role of good works in salvation.