Prayers from the First English Prayer Book

By Peterson, W. S.

Excerpt
Excerpt: Which three books have had the deepest influence on the English language? Everyone, of course, who plays this sort of Desert Island game is likely to come up with a different list of titles, but the most obvious candidates are surely The Book of Common Prayer, the King James version of the Bible, and the works of Shakespeare. It is probably no accident that all three books were published within a span of less than a century (the first edition of the Prayer Book was issued in 1549, the Bible in 1611, and the First Folio of Shakespeare in 1623) at a time when our language was entering into a phase of rapid development and immense vitality. The Prayer Book was to have an especially potent effect, because for nearly half a millennium congregations throughout the English-speaking world have heard its beautiful, dignified cadences uttered from pulpit and lectern every Sunday. Before it appeared, the English Church worshipped both publicly and privately in Latin, the universal language of Western Christianity, though there had been a gradual attempt, during the final years of the reign of King Henry viii, to add at a least few prayers and scriptural readings in English to the Latin Mass. But suddenly, in the middle of the sixteenth century, the men and women of England found themselves for the first time praying to God in their own tongue. It must have been a startling experience.

Book Id: WPLBN0000707705
Format Type: PDF eBook
File Size: 548.95 KB.
Reproduction Date: 2004
Full Text

Title:

Prayers from the First English Prayer Book

Author:

Peterson, W. S.

Volume:

Language:

English

Subject:

Religion, Christian literature, Christian theology

Collection:

Christian Classics Ethereal Library

Subcollection:

Historic
Publication Date:

Publisher:

Christian Classics Ethereal Library

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