SOURCE: Auksi, Peter. “‘So rude and simple style’: William Tyndale's polemical prose.” Journal of Medieval & Renaissance Studies 8, no. 2 (fall 1978): 235-56.

In the following essay, Auksi considers Tyndale's polemical prose “which punctuated and accompanied his work in translation.”

I

For more than four centuries William Tyndale has eluded the specialized attention of literary historians. Analysts of history have claimed him as the first major champion of Luther's theology in England,¹ while chroniclers of Puritanism have regarded him as the originator of various facets of the English Puritan movement.² Nor have recent major studies on Tyndale's techniques in controversy illuminated his startling linguistic, stylistic, or rhetorical gifts.³ Above all, Tyndale has been the rightful subject of students of Scripture. The judicious assessment of R. W. Chambers, that “Tyndale is the man to whom, above all other men, the literary merit of the English Bible is due,”⁴ represents both popular and...