ABSTRACT
The prose pamphlets of the radicals during the English Civil War and Interregnum have recently been admired for their verve, their unusual means of challenging authority and their sheer novelty. The prose styles of the radicals were truly revolutionary, and represent a practical literary response that we should situate between conservative assertions of natural and divinely sanctioned hierarchies, and the never-never-land of the utopian tradition, which itself is often connected to the radical texts. The rhythms, incantations and naming concerns identified by Cope are indelible marks of their identity, but their struggles of self-understanding reveal a more diverse, penetrating and absorbing use of words and the body. Some years ago the author published a short essay on the early Quaker enthusiast John Perrot, whose work alarmed the Quaker leadership and who was eventually excluded from the movement. In particular, the author connected his personal behaviour with the extravagant nature of his writings.
