"Issues of the English Reformation": The reformation that took place in Tudor England, under the successive reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Elizabeth I, from 1534 onwards, was not a simple, straightforward movement, but it may be variously presented under five issues, the political, the liturgical, the doctrinal, the religious, and the literary, moving as it were from tragic reality to dramatic representation, above all in the plays of Shakespeare. One may further distinguish five aspects, by way of appendices, on the wives of Henry VIII, the Renaissance academy, the "Great Controversy" and the rise of Puritanism, culminating in the impact of the reformation on Shakespeare.
Peter Milward was born in London on October 12, 1925, and educated at Wimbledon College (a Jesuit high school). He entered the Society of Jesus in 1943, and after various studies he went on to specialize in the Classics and English at Oxford University. He came to Japan in 1954 and after further studies was ordained priest in 1960. From 1962 onwards he has taught English literature at Sophia University in Tokyo. In addition to founding the Renaissance Institute, the Hopkins Society of Japan and the Chesterton Society of Japan, he has published some 400 books, mostly as textbooks for Japanese students, many of them translated into Japanese, but now most of them out of print. Several of his books, especially those on the drama of Shakespeare and the poetry of Hopkins, have been published in England and America. Even in retirement he is still teaching and writing, as he enters his 88th year (or beiju).
