This article analyzes how Anna Trapnel utilizes a hybrid prophetic text of prose and verse in her The Cry of a Stone (1654) to persuade Oliver Cromwell to abandon his reactionary political course and devote himself to political and social reform in accordance with God's will. By tracing her comparison of Cromwell to Gideon, this article focuses on the aesthetic strategy of Trapnel’s prose and verse prophecy, which plainly portrays Cromwell’s downfall from being a defender of political and social reform to being a rebel against it. By approaching her hybrid prophecy in its formal and historical context, this paper not only argues that Trapnel creates a rhetorical effect that suits her political and authorial causes by giving order to her impromptu prose prophecies through her more plain verse prophecies, but also calls for a formal approach to female prophecy.
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