ABSTRACT
Tobie Matthew's Life of Lucy Knatchbull lays bare, then, the effects of ideas and books on Lives. This chapter uses his observation on the Ministry of our Sences' to illustrate two interlocking facets of bookish experience as described by the nuns themselves: the role of reading in shaping sensory behaviour, and the route of the senses into and out of the body. The 1611 version of the Life of Teresa de Jesus, published in Antwerp, contained a dedicatory epistle from Luis de Leon to Anne of Jesus, a Discalced Carmelite in Madrid, praising the liuely pictures' Teresa left for her nuns: her children' and her books. The chapter considers the effect on Margaret Mostyn of reading Arcadia, a text which itself bears testimony to the pain and pleasure of sensory arousal. Katharine Craik discusses Sidney's work and ideas of utilising military anger through fiction which may reinforce men's active commitment to country and commonwealth'.
