John Knox

David Coleman (The Nottingham Trent University)

Ed. by Hugh Magennis, Queen's University Belfast, J. Derrick McClure, University of Aberdeen
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.03: English Writing and Culture: Renaissance (Elizabethan and Jacobean periods) , 1485-1625.
Vol. editors: William M. Hamlin (Washington State University), J A Roe (University of York), Virginia Mason Vaughan (Clark University), Ema Vyroubalova (Trinity College Dublin)

Dates

Born c. 1514
Died 1572
Activity 1547-1572

Places

Born in Scotland
Active in England; Scotland; Switzerland

Activities

Primary

Polemicist
Preacher
Reformer
Religious writer

Other

Clergyman
Essayist
Historian / Chronicler
Letter-writer/ Diarist
Pamphleteer

Resources

The most famous Church reformer in Scottish history, Knox’s life and work also possess a much wider international significance. A controversial figure in his lifetime and beyond, Knox has been alternatively vilified and celebrated, but remains one of the most enigmatic figures in British history. His literary influence is considerable – renowned for his religious zeal and inflammatory rhetoric, Knox’s central literary technique is a strategy of polarisation. For Knox, Catholicism is false, immoral and worldly; Protestantism is true, virtuous and heavenly. Such a schematic vision of the world is by no means uncommon in sixteenth-century rhetoric; what distinguishes Knox, however, is both the strictness of the adherence to this system of thought, and the vehemence with which it is propounded in his writings.

Born in Haddington, East Lothian, probably in 1513 or 1514, Knox’s...

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2050 words

Citation: Coleman, David. "John Knox". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 31 May 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2546, accessed 09 June 2026.]