The Rhetoric of Fear in English Literature of the 16th-17th Centuries (The Case of the Expression "Great Fear"): A Digital Approach

Kornilova Aleksandra Andreevna ORCID: 0009-0009-9822-9295 Master's degree; Institute of Philology, Journalism and Intercultural Communication; Southern Federal University 93 Universitetskiy Lane, Rostov-on-Don, Rostov region, 344006, Russia algoncharova@sfedu.ru

Severina Elena Mikhailovna ORCID: 0000-0001-6518-2771 Doctor of Philosophy Professor; Department of Linguistics and Professional Communication; Southern Federal University 344006, Russia, Rostov-on-Don, lane University, 93 emkovalenko@sfedu.ru

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Proverbs 1:7) – this biblical quotation formed the basis of one of the main theses of Christian theology: deep reverence for God and recognition of man's complete dependence on Him are considered as a starting point for understanding the world ^{[7, p. 96]}. However, the theological status of fear of God is twofold: on the one hand, fear is interpreted as a manifestation of a sinful state – fear of punishment (servile fear), on the other – as a necessary condition for knowledge of God and expression of reverence (filial fear) ^{[1; 5]}. In the history of Christian thought, the fear of God has repeatedly become the subject of reinterpretation: from mystical awe of the "numinous" ^[31] and existential horror of absolute nothingness ^{[4, p. 39]} to the structuring principle of faith ^[30]. Thus, the fear of God is deeply rooted in Christian ethics.

Given the importance of the fear of God in the Christian tradition, we have turned to the New Testament apocrypha, works of Christian literature not included in the canon of the New Testament, as an important source of Christian worldview formation. Despite their non-canonical status, the New Testament apocrypha has retained its influence in Christian culture for centuries ^{[10, p. 90]}.

To analyze the lexical representation of the concept of "fear of God", 43 texts of translations of the New Testament apocrypha (I–XIV centuries) into English, made in the XIX–XXI centuries, were studied. The texts were selected using the e-Clavis: Christian Apocrypha (ECCA) database ^[16]. Each entry in the database is accompanied by metadata, including a summary of the work, information about the variants of the title, etc. The English translations selected for the analysis were made from Greek (13), Coptic (9), Latin (5), Syriac (5), Ethiopian (5), Georgian (2), Arabic (1), Armenian (1), Irish (1), Old English (1).

The Voyant Tools corpus manager was used for preliminary corpus analysis and identification of stable phrases in texts ^[32]. A total of 28 cases of the use of the phrase great fear ("great fear") were found. At the same time, in most contexts (20), the use of this phrase is associated with the manifestation of Divine power when supernatural phenomena are described, most often miracles that inspire fear in enemies and awe in believers.

Examples:

"And when those virgins saw the Angel of God talking to Mary, they were afraid with great fear." here and further the author's translation)) ^[34]

"...it came to pass that a great fear at first came over them and they were smitten with blindness and afterwards the Lord sent fire from heaven upon them and they were consumed withal" ("... and it came to pass that a great fear first came upon them, and struck them with blindness, and then sent it upon The Lord sent fire from heaven to them, and it consumed them") ^[29].

However, the phrase great fear is also used in the context of a threat to life (8):

"And Matthew said, say that while I was in ship, in great fear by reason of the great waves and bills of violent sea, a cloud snatched me from among the bills and set me here" ("And Matthew said that when he was in the boat, in great fear of the great waves of the stormy the sea, a cloud lifted him up among the waves, and he ended up here") ^[34]

"He answered in great fear of death, saying to me, 'Hail many times, my beloved son...' ("He, seized with great mortal fear, replied to me: 'Rejoice many times, my beloved son...") ^[17]

Thus, the texts of the apocrypha reveal two main thematic areas related to fear: fear of the manifestation of the Divine (miracles) and fear of death.

To study the contexts of the use of this phrase outside of religious discourse, several English corpora were analyzed. Of particular interest was the Early English Books Online (EEBO) corpus, a collection of English–language texts from 1475 to 1700. In this corpus, the expression great fear turned out to be not only frequent, but also functionally significant. This was especially evident in the texts of English literature of the XVI–XVII centuries – artistic, religious, and political – when confessional conflicts, civil wars, and the search for national identity actualized the language of the Bible as a language of legitimization of power and morality and as a code of interpretation of reality for various social groups ^{[22, p. 34; p. 52]}.

The purpose of the study is to study the semantic and pragmatic features of the use of the expression great fear in the texts of English literature of the early Modern period and to identify its role in the formation of religious, political and social discourses of the era.

Research methods:

· to work with the EEBO corpus, the Corpus Query Processor (CQPweb) platform was used ^{[11, 15]}, through which data was uploaded in table format, including the context of the phrase being searched for (200 words before and after), the author's name, bibliographic reference, century and estimated publication date, publisher, key thematic terms, location publications, etc.;

· Python programming language libraries (pandas, numpy, spaCy, nltk, etc.) were used for data processing and analysis, which allowed for context lemmatization and statistical analysis.;

· Text vectorization was performed using the TF-IDF statistical measure ^{[2, p. 115]}; the K-Means machine learning algorithm was used for clustering ^[20]; semantic differences between contexts were visualized using the t-SNE dimensionality reduction algorithm ^[3].

EEBO Case Analysis

The EEBO corpus (v2) supported by CQPweb includes 12,284 texts with a total number of tokens – 624,277,146. The great search query was used to download data from the EEBO corpus* fear*, which made it possible to take into account the variable spelling forms typical of the early Modern period. The use of such a formula included other expressions, for example, greatly afraid, which are also significant for the study.

A total of 3,661 occurrences were found in 1,396 texts. Analysis of the thematic distribution of the phrase great* fear* shows that the most frequent context of its use is historical chronicles of the Ottoman (160) and Roman Empires (140), Great Britain (96), travel descriptions (144), as well as sermons (53) and works on Christian asceticism (43).

An analysis of the contexts has shown that the expression is most often found in texts describing the political enemies of Christianity, as well as in travelogues dealing with "alien worlds." Thus, the phrase great* fear* was more often used not so much in religious contexts as in the context of a person's encounter with some threat, which was most often represented by other religions, societies, and forms of government that were considered imperfect in early Modern England ^{[34, p. 58]}. The rhetoric of fear in these texts is combined with the idea of providential history, where historical events are interpreted as a manifestation of God's plan – in Protestant culture of the XVI–XVII centuries. "history was a canvas on which the Lord imprinted His goals and intentions" ^{[35, p. 3]}. A diachronic analysis of the contexts of the EEBO corpus showed that in historical chronicles In travelogues, the expression great fear appears sporadically, mainly due to large–scale texts and concentrated bursts, and in Christian literature, including in sermons, it is characterized by a fairly consistent use throughout the XVI–XVII centuries.

Thus, the expression great fear turns out to be a formula of fear in both religious and historiographical discourse.

Thematic shifts in the use of the great fear formula

The first use of greate fear in the corpus is recorded in the French translation of Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, the ascetic book "The Mirroure of Golde for the Sinfull Soule" (1506), where fear is mentioned in the context of the fear of eternal torment.:

“Beholde my dere frende: of howe great parell you myghtest delyuer the: and howe great fear you myghtest flee: yf in this worlde: you be fearful and thynkynge of deth: study to lyfe soo in this worlde that at the hour of deth: you mayste haue more cause to reioyse then to dreade("Behold, my dear friend, how great a calamity you could have avoided and from what great fear you could have been freed if, staying in this world, fearing death and remembering it, you had striven to arrange your life so that in the hour of death you would have more reasons for rejoicing than for trembling. and horror") ^[23]

In the 1520s, great fear was often used in historical chronicles, for example, in the book "Here begynneth the first volume of Sir Iohan Froyssart of the cronycles of Englande, Fraunce, Spayne, Portyngale, Scotlande, Bretayne, Flau[n]ders: and other places adioynynge" (1523, translated from French) this formula is used to describe the fear of life:

"other in the power of theyr frendis / or in the power of theyr enemies: on the: iiii: day they toke forth theyr way in the adultery of god / and of saint george / as such people as had suffered great disease of colde by nyght and hunger and great fear" ("Being whether at the mercy of their friends, or betrayed into the hands of their enemies, on the fourth day they set out, entrusting themselves to the mercy of God and St. George, as people who had suffered great hardships from the night cold, hunger and great fear") ^[18]

However, with the publication of the Bible by William Tyndale (1534) and Miles Coverdale (1538), the expression takes on a clearly religious connotation. M. Coverdale used great fear in his translations, for example, in a treatise that talks about the fear of God's enemies.:

“but be rather peyered, peruerse, &; myndlesse: Yee and they become enemies of god by the lawe: wherever they are brought to greater fear, than they can be swagged and reduced againe by gods worde" ("but on the contrary, they are blinded, corrupted, reckless. Yes, they become enemies of God through the Law, which, instead of salvation, leads to such great fear that they can no longer be comforted or healed by the word of God") ^[12]

In the Geneva Bible (edition 1599), the most popular Bible of the Elizabethan era ^{[25, p. 67]}, great fear occurs 15 times: 7 in the text itself (The Dream of Isaac (Gen. 27:33), about the plagues of Egypt (Deut. 4:34), fear of God (Deut. 34:12, Dan. 10:7), fear of God's miracle (Luke 8:37), fear after witnessing God's punishment (Acts. 5:5, 5:11), fear of God's enemies (Revelation 11:11)); 8 of them are in the comments and headlines translators. 

So, at first glance, great fear is associated with the themes of death, miracle, and punishment in this corpus of texts. However, its use demonstrates not a direct transfer of religious rhetoric into a secular context, but a complex intertwining of sacred and secular readings of history, in which events continue to be interpreted as manifestations of Providence.

Using the phrase great fear in a religious context

To trace how the great formula was used* fear* to denote religious fear, regular expressions were used to detect references to the Bible that were quoted or paraphrased in close proximity to the expression great* fear* in context.

The Geneva Bible was the first English edition in which the text was systematically divided into verses to facilitate work with concordances; in addition, short headings and Protestant commentaries were included ^{[27, p. 456]}. In the 1640s, after the fall of censorship, radical religious groups gained unlimited access to print ^{[22, p.19]} and the use of biblical quotations increased significantly. 

Fig.2

The most frequently cited texts were the following (Fig. 2):

· Ps. 53:5 (7 mentions) (in the Greek numbering – 52:6) is a verse about the fear of the wicked before the punishment of God, according to the interpretations of the Geneva Bible ^{[19, p. 577]}. His popularity increased during periods of political and religious crises from the 1630s to the 1680s.

· Revelation 11:11 (6 mentions) is a verse describing the resurrection of two Witnesses. In England in the middle of the 17th century, this verse gained special significance due to the Muggleton movement: in the early 1650s, tailors John Reeve and Lodovik Muggleton declared themselves the two last Witnesses predicted in Revelation 11:11 ^{[22, p. 241]}. The peak of quoting of this verse falls on the 1660s. Perhaps this is due both to the delayed reflection of the event in literature, and to the difficulties in identifying mentions in the 1650s due to the variable spelling in the texts of that time.

· Rom. 7:24 (6 mentions) – a lament for the "body of death", expressing the inner struggle with sin. The surge in citations occurred at the end of the 1670s, which may be related to the publication of John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress to the Heavenly Land" (1678), in which the author repeatedly refers to this verse.

· Hebrews 12:21 (6 mentions) – a description of Moses' trembling on Mount Sinai, mentioned in the context of a comparison of the Old and New Testaments. The concept of the covenant occupied a central place in the Reformed theology of England in the 17th century, in which the conclusion of the covenant as a sign of the chosen people ^{[22, pp. 273-274]}. The citation of this verse increases on the eve of the civil war in the 1630s.

· Acts 5:11 (5 mentions) – a description of the awe that gripped the members of the early Church after the manifestation of Divine judgment – this is how the Geneva Bible interpreted this fragment ^{[19, p. 1099]}. This verse first appeared in a Bible dictionary from the 1610s and was then consistently quoted in the 1650s and 1670s.

An analysis of the graph of the distribution of biblical references by decade shows that the largest number of citations was concentrated during the period of religious and political instability – from the decade before the Civil War (1630s) to the end of the crisis period - the Glorious Revolution (late 1680s).

Semantic clustering of the contexts of the use of the phrase great fear

For a deeper understanding of the types of contexts in which the expression great occurs* fear*, clusterization of text data using the K-means method based on TF-IDF vectorization was performed. In total, five clusters were identified, for each the first ten words were highlighted, reflecting the dominant themes and biblical references used in the contexts. To visualize semantic differences between contexts, dimensionality reduction using the t-SNE algorithm is applied. In the graph (Fig. 3), each point represents a separate context, and its color reflects its membership in the corresponding cluster.

Fig. 3

· Cluster 0 (military threat):

The vocabulary of the cluster indicates the description of military operations: king (king), army (army), city (city), enemy (enemy), soldier (soldier), war (war), Turks (Turks), town (city). The contexts reflect situations of battles, sieges, and territorial struggles: “... if the enemy had not retired from the walles in great fear, we could not, but with great hazard, have entred...("... if the enemy had not retreated from the walls in great fear, we would not have entered without exposing ourselves to the greatest danger...")^[28]

“...Now when the Turks were come to the foot of the mountaine, they were in that great feare and disorder...("... When the Turks reached the foot of the mountain, they were seized with such great fear and confusion...") ^[24]

The biblical references found in these contexts refer to the Old Testament wars: Exodus 17:8 (the battle with the Amalekites), Isa. 11:1 (the unification of kings against Israel), 1 Kings. 5:1 (the captivity of the Ark of the Covenant).

· Cluster 1 (God's Fear):

The cluster located on the far right of the graph is highly homogeneous. The lexemes god (God), lord (Lord), sin (sin), faith (faith), heart (heart), holy (holy) indicate the preaching texts:

“When the Lord appeared unto the Patriarchs, Prophets, and Apostles... he used commonly to send before some great fear...("When the Lord appeared to the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles... He usually preceded His appearance with great fear...")^[6]

“...the office of the lawe... to teach against our offenses and to set before our eyes the great fear of God..." ("... the purpose of the Law ... is to convict us of our sins and reveal to our eyes the great fear of God...") ^[13]

The frequent biblical references mentioned above (Romans 7:24, Hebrews 12:21, Revelation 11:11, Acts 5:11) reflect the themes of awareness of sinfulness and the need for piety, which are characteristic of sermons.

· Cluster 2 (existential fear): 

The graph shows the central part with a large point dispersion, reflecting the diverse contexts of using the expression great fear – from travelogues to courtly novels. Here the words are associated with a variety of contexts: come (come), sea (sea), ship (ship), knight (knight), place (place), time (time), and rather reflects the outline of the novel's narrative.  

"...how can any of us live but in great fear, seeing that so many lies and times we are deceived by you..." ("... how can any of us live except in great fear, seeing how in so many ways and so often we are deceived by you...") ^[14]

"the Watch-man came to the Season ... he was in great fear of losing his life" ("The watchman came to the seashore ... he was seized with great fear for his life...") ^[9]

In the contexts of this cluster, there are various single references to the Bible: the persecution of enemies (Ps. 69:4), the parable of the prodigal son (Lk. 15:25), the description of the earthquake (Rev.16:20), which indicates the inclusion of religious themes in more secular narratives.

· Cluster 3 (personal fear):

The graph is mixed with the previous classes. Here, fear is rather a response to strong inner feelings: man (man), think (think), love (love), know (know), life (life). 

"Great things are attended with great Cares, and great Fears."^[8]

“...now was I in greater fear then before, for I had lately escaped hanging for theft...("And I was seized with an even greater fear than before, for only recently had I escaped the gallows for theft") ^[21]

Related Biblical References – Everyday instructions from the Book of Proverbs (6:27, 20:25), the horror of Job (Job 3:25), the call to God to deliver from enemies (Ps. 141:5), Abraham's request to God not to destroy Sodom (Gen. 18:27), which emphasizes themes of fear of personal responsibility and moral choice.

· Cluster 4 (fear of the future):

The graph shows a small cluster "inside" cluster 1. Most likely, contexts from preaching texts with an emphasis on prophecies and eschatological expectations.

“How shall not euery creature then shake and stand in great feare? And if then the flood of fyre did not overflow the worlde..." ("How can the whole creature not shudder and rise in great fear? And if at that hour the fiery flood did not engulf the universe...")

[Holsome and catholyke doctryne concerninge the seuen Sacramentes of Chrystes Church expedient to be knowen of all men, 1558]

"some of them will be struck with so great fear and trembling, and will be so destitute of all hope and trust, that they will assume themselves to be reprobate, and finally excluded from the divine mercy" ("Some of them were struck with such great fear and trembling, and will lose all hope and the hope that they will consider themselves rejected and completely excommunicated from divine mercy") ^[26]

The most frequent references – Ezek. 37:4, Rom. 7:19, 2 Peter 3:9, Is. 9:6 – are related to the themes of the future resurrection, repentance and expectation of the Messiah.

Clustering has shown that using the expression great* fear* in English texts of the XVI–XVII centuries covers a wide range of topics – from the collective fear of enemies to the existential experiences of believers. This reflects the complex use of fear rhetoric in religious and secular narratives.

Conclusions

The study showed that the expression great fear ("great fear") in English texts of the XVI–XVII centuries was used in various narratives – translations and commentaries of the Bible, sermons, travelogues, historical chronicles, i.e. it became an integral element of the rhetoric of fear. If at the level of translations of apocryphal literature great* fear* primarily marks the Divine presence, combining fear of punishment with awe, while in the EEBO corpus this expression is integrated into secular narratives.

Clustering of contexts showed the use of the phrase great* fear* in the following narratives: descriptions of military conflicts, sermon texts, secular themes, feelings about personal responsibility, as well as eschatological expectations.

Thus, the analysis of great fear demonstrated the complex interaction of religious and secular narratives. The use of digital methods opens up new ways for interdisciplinary study of religious discourse, allowing for a deeper understanding of its role in socio-cultural transformations in a historical context.