Agnostos Dei: staging Catholicism and the antisectarian aesthetic in early-Stuart England【翻译】

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ABSTRACT
My dissertation, Agnostos Dei: Staging Catholicism and the Anti-Sectarian Aesthetic in Early-
Stuart England, traces over four chapters the emergence of a literary counter-aesthetic to the
increasingly violent sectarianism of Post-Reformation England. I focus primarily on popular
plays that dramatize the destabilizing effects of radical beliefs on a society, whether small
town or royal court, culminating in blood and exile. I argue that the plays’ destructive
conflicts and redemptive moments suggest the potential worth of cross-sectarian belief and
ritual. In doing so, John Fletcher’s The Faithfull Shepherdess (1608), William Shakespeare and
John Fletcher’s Henry VIII (1613), Dekker, Ford, and Rowley’s The Witch of Edmonton (1621),
and John Ford’s ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (1629) participate in an aesthetic that rejects the
disunity promoted by radical sectarians and revises the rhetoric of English Protestantism.
Kings James and Charles promoted, ultimately unsuccessfully, a via media (middle way) for
the Church of England, seeking reunification of divergent Christian sects. At the same time,
these works used the theatre as a space of free play to consider the possibility of ecumenical
success in fictionalized worlds removed from the clashing rhetoric of real kings and clergy.
My project responds to the revitalized return to religion in the scholarship of early
modern England, which has included a renewed interest in the English Catholic experience
and a reconsideration of the variety of believers within the nation, loosely grouped into
categories like Puritans and High Church Anglicans. My work presents a correlative- and
counter-narrative to these well-established readings. I consider the historical and literary
analogues of the plays and the contemporary religiopolitical realities of the times of their
staging. Rather than attempting to discover crypto-sectarian messages in the tales or
intentions of the playwrights behind them, I argue that such categorizations can reduce and
obscure the broader, ecumenical implications of these works. In speaking to a range of
sectarian audiences, these playwrights exceed the limitations of clear affiliation to address a
wider Christian possibility.
in drawing on her words and contending with her work, that I have expressed my
appreciation of Huston’s exemplary guidance and scholarly model.
Finally, to Miriam Gilbert, with deepest appreciation, who welcomed me when I first
introduced myself in the summer of 2007 and each time since when I have stopped to talk,
to update, to assure myself of my direction. She has guided me to become a better editor of
my own writing and has now welcomed me to exit the program as she does, our many hours
of work and conversation culminating in this project.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION SECTARIAN ANXIETY AND THE ANTI-SECTARIAN
AESTHETIC .................................................................................................................. 1
CHAPTER 1 TRAGICOMOEDIA, GRATIA PLENA: AMALGAMATING
CHRISTIAN PURITY ................................................................................................ 26
Belief Afield: The Christian Pastoral ........................................................................ 33
The Virgin’s Efficacy: Fletcher’s The Faithful Shepherdess ....................................... 42
Near Tragedy and Dramatic Belief ............................................................................ 58
CHAPTER 2 REFORMED AND RECUSANT: DEFENDERS OF THE
FAITH(S) ...................................................................................................................... 61
De-Secting the Protestant Mythology ....................................................................... 67
Re-membering an Anti-Sectarian Mythology ........................................................... 78
Reinterring the Corpus Ecclesia ................................................................................. 95
CHAPTER 3 THE RADICALIZING REFORMATION OF ZEALOUS
PRACTICE ................................................................................................................... 98
The Devil’s Due ......................................................................................................... 104
Propagating Zealotry ................................................................................................. 107
Serious Foolery .......................................................................................................... 118
Irreligious Irresolution .............................................................................................. 125
CHAPTER 4 PROROGUED ECUMENICALISM: SILENCING PUBLIC
CONTENTION ....................................................................................................... 130
Pity for the Mainstream ............................................................................................ 139
The Growing Opposition......................................................................................... 156
An Anti-Sectarian Defeat ......................................................................................... 168
CONCLUSION A SUBJECT OF SOVEREIGN FAITH .................................................... 172
BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................................... 178