This study examines the role of religious poetry and pedagogy in
maintaining the English Catholic community during the Reformation and
Counter-Reformation. English Catholics faced legal sanctions, social isolation,
and physical harm for practicing their faith, and the Catholic church began a
campaign to maintain, educate, and minister to the community covertly through
the use of Jesuit missionaries and published pedagogical texts. The influence of
such experiences can be seen in the literary works of John Donne, Robert
Southwell, Richard Crashaw, and Elizabeth Cary, as well as in the instructional
works by lesser-known Catholic writers including John Fowler, Thomas Wright,
John Bucke, Henry Garnet, Gaspar Loarte, John Mush, Jeanne de Cambray, and
Agnes More. These texts also show a stylistic influence upon one another
wherein pedagogical texts utilize poetic language, and poetic texts instruct the
reader in religious practice through modeling and example. Through a careful
reading of these works, I examine the early modern literary landscape of
England in its Catholic context. Finally, I argue that the question of
Protestant/Catholic identity led to the development of a religious poetics that emphasized the role of the individual within this crisis and, more importantly,
in his or her relationship with God.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-1111 |
| Date | 15 May 2009 |
| Creators | Garcia, Patricia Marie |
| Contributors | Parrish, Paul A. |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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