identity squarely in the modern period. Indeed the genre emerges uniquely in the mid-seventeenth century on the cusp of the modern period. It is not Luther and Calvin who write conversion narratives – we have to piece together the details of their spiritual biographies from fragments in their the-ological writings – but their later descendants. Conversion narrative as a popular genre emerges in the mid-seventeenth century in the context of what Ernest Stoeffler calls the post-Reformation experiential tradition. Early examples include August Hermann Francke in : The genre itself reflects a high level of individuation. This is what might be expected under the conditions of the early modern world as the individual begins to count in all sorts of ways. As already suggested, the origins of indi- vidualism are contested and it is dangerous to take a narrow intellectual view

doi:10.4324/9780203166505-42

Chapter

identity squarely in the modern period. Indeed the genre emerges uniquely in the mid-seventeenth century on the cusp of the modern period. It is not Luther and Calvin who write conversion narratives – we have to piece together the details of their spiritual biographies from fragments in their the-ological writings – but their later descendants. Conversion narrative as a popular genre emerges in the mid-seventeenth century in the context of what Ernest Stoeffler calls the post-Reformation experiential tradition. Early examples include August Hermann Francke in

Chapter

identity squarely in the modern period. Indeed the genre emerges uniquely in the mid-seventeenth century on the cusp of the modern period. It is not Luther and Calvin who write conversion narratives – we have to piece together the details of their spiritual biographies from fragments in their the-ological writings – but their later descendants. Conversion narrative as a popular genre emerges in the mid-seventeenth century in the context of what Ernest Stoeffler calls the post-Reformation experiential tradition. Early examples include August Hermann Francke in

ABSTRACT

Here, then, it is better if we speak of the conditions of modernity than of the Enlightenment per se. The developments that constitute modernity, including mass communication, efficient transportation and increased mobility, religious toleration, capitalism and consumerism, industrialization, demographic change and political reform – all of these are in place in such a way by the eighteenth century, even if in embryo, that ordinary men and women are left having to find their way in the world in a new manner.