Reconciling Eros and Agape: The English Catholic Artistic Response to Reforms

<p>This study explores the English Catholic artistic response to reforms--reforms being both internal and external to the Catholic Church--as part of the Catholic Reformation. "Response," for the purposes of this project, may be defined in terms of an "answer" in an ongoing dialogue about the Catholic position and may be seen as both conciliatory and apologetic in nature. Understanding this response is useful when we consider the role of rhetoric and poetry in society and the attendant contemporary theories thereof, in their historical context, especially the duty of the poet. The recent "revisionist" history is central to understanding art contextually. While identifying the key doctrinal debates between Catholics and Protestants, this study traces these elements in the English Catholic art of Edmund Campion, Robert Southwell, and William Byrd and focuses, especially, on the way art attempts to reconcile man's human and divine natures, or <em>Eros</em> and <em>Agape</em>. This can enrich our understanding of the degree to which the spiritual may be found in the temporal to represent how important the concept of the soul and its believed afterlife was to Renaissance artists and their audiences particularly during a time of sustained religious unrest, censorship, and persecution. From the Catholic perspective, a significant recurring trope is the Blessed Sacrament in the then-forbidden rite of the Catholic Mass and its meritorious powers: to impart grace--even when simply gazed upon; to unify members of the Church as Christ's Earthly Body and Bride; to nourish the soul; and, ultimately, to secure the salvation necessary for eternal life. As rhetoric, poetry, and drama are the fruits of education central to the Ignatian charism of "helping souls," the Jesuit influence on Byrd and other lay figures among the Catholic recusant community such as Sir Thomas Tresham and Sir John Harington may be detected in music, buildings, and verse. This project endeavors to broaden the critical base for additional studies concerned with reforms in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England to enrich our understanding of artistic work in this period, most pointedly in terms of reconciling <em>Eros</em> and <em>Agape</em>.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Year dc:date.available

2012

Author dc:creator

• Coonradt, Nicole M.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Linda Bensel-Meyers, Ph.D.
• Alexandra Olsen, Ph.D.
• Eleanor McNees
• Clark Davis
• M. E. Warlick

• Edmund Campion
• English Jesuits
• Reformation
• Renaissance poetics
• Robert Southwell
• William Byrd
• English Language and Literature
• Religion

Statement dc:rights

• <p>Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.</p>

Language dc:language

en

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/141

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.du.edu:etd-1140