Catholicism, controversy, and the English literary imagination, 1558-1660

Alison Shell0-511-03863-1, 0-521-58090-0

The Catholic contribution to English literary culture has been widely neglected or misunderstood. This book sets out to rehabilitate a wide range of Catholic imaginative writing, while exposing the role of anti-Catholicism as an imaginative stimulus to mainstream writers in Tudor and Stuart England. It discusses canonical figures such as Sidney, Spenser, Webster and Middleton alongside many lesser-known writers. Alison Shell explores the Catholic rhetoric of loyalism and apostasy, and the stimulus given to the Catholic literary imagination by the persecution and exile so many of these writers suffered.

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Table of contents :
Cover……Page 1
Half-title……Page 3
Title……Page 5
Copyright……Page 6
Contents……Page 7
Acknowledgements……Page 8
Abbreviations……Page 11
Note on the text……Page 13
Introduction……Page 15
PART I Catholics and the canon……Page 35
CHAPTER 1 The livid flash: decadence, anti-Catholic revenge tragedy and the dehistoricised critic……Page 37
APOCALYPTIC DISCLOSURES……Page 38
THE THING DISCLOSED……Page 43
ORNAMENT AND HYPOCRISY……Page 46
MIDDLETON’S MANIFESTO……Page 50
REVENGE AND TRIAL……Page 57
THE DECADENT IMAGE……Page 63
CONCLUSION: A DAMNED WORLD?……Page 66
CHAPTER 2 Catholic poetics and the Protestant canon……Page 70
THE INVISIBLE INFLUENCE: ROBERT SOUTHWELL……Page 72
SOUTHWELL AS POETIC THEORIST……Page 77
THE CALL TO REPENTANCE……Page 91
REPENTANCE, CONVERSION AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY……Page 102
CRASHAW AND THE ENGLISH CATHOLIC BAROQUE……Page 107
CRASHAW CRITICISED……Page 111
PART II Loyalism and exclusion……Page 119
CHAPTER 3 Catholic loyalism: I. Elizabethan writers……Page 121
CATHOLIC LOYALTY: DEFINITIONS AND DISAGREEMENTS……Page 124
MARY STUART: SAINT AND PROVOCATION……Page 130
IN PRAISE OF ELIZABETH: SONNETS, IMPRESE AND CATHOLIC MODERATION……Page 136
ALLEGORY AND PETITION: LOYALIST WRITING, 1595–1603……Page 147
CHAPTER 4 Catholic loyalism: II. Stuart writers……Page 155
‘GREAT AUSTIN’: JAMES I AND THE LOYALIST IMAGINATION……Page 156
ABSOLUTISM, MARITAL OBEDIENCE AND STRATAGEMS OF PERSUASION……Page 160
CONCLUSION……Page 179
CHAPTER 5 The subject of exile: I……Page 183
WEEPING ENGLAND……Page 189
JESUIT TRAGICOMEDY AND THE LESSONS OF EXILE……Page 201
CHAPTER 6 The subject of exile: II……Page 208
‘AT HOME IN HEAVEN’: HYMNS AND THE SOUL’S EXILE……Page 209
MARY IN EXILE: THE MADONNA VULNERATA……Page 214
EXILE AND ITS POLEMICAL ADVANTAGES……Page 221
Conclusion……Page 238
INTRODUCTION……Page 242
1 THE LIVID FLASH: DECADENCE, ANTI-CATHOLIC REVENGE TRAGEDY AND THE DEHISTORICISED CRITIC……Page 248
2 CATHOLIC POETICS AND THE PROTESTANT CANON……Page 258
3 CATHOLIC LOYALISM: I. ELIZABETHAN WRITERS……Page 273
4 CATHOLIC LOYALISM: II. STUART WRITERS……Page 282
5 THE SUBJECT OF EXILE: I……Page 293
6 THE SUBJECT OF EXILE: II……Page 301
CONCLUSION……Page 312
Works frequently cited……Page 314
Index……Page 317