'Painful Passages': Death, Ritual, and Literature in Post -Reformation England

"This dissertation examines forms of writing that emerge in seventeenth century England as Protestants struggle to reform older Catholic traditions and discover new ways of representing death. Cultural and literary studies in this period have usually seen this transition as an attack on traditional modes of remembering the dead and comforting the dying. I draw on recent historiography in order to counter the assumption of a single, iconoclastic Protestant approach to death and demonstrate the dynamic, often conflicting ways in which literary and nonliterary texts contribute to the ongoing reform of this crucial rite of passage. Death rituals are an important site of controversy and change in this period, and works of literature engage in the debate over their meaning as they represent practices associated with visitation of the dying, grieving, will-making, and burial. Looking at lyric poetry by John Donne, religious allegory by John Bunyan, and ars moriendi literature by a range of Protestant writers, I analyze how elements of ""ritual form"" are adapted in texts seeking to both stabilize and ""reform"" cultural representations of death. My argument also engages with recent work on modern, privatized forms of mourning and memory and responds critically to the claim that Protestantism created or enabled these secularized responses to death. I emphasize, instead, the sense of ceremonial obligation that informs post-Reformation literature as writers continue to represent death as a sacred, communal occasion in which religious affiliations are reaffirmed."

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Steen, Abram

Contributors dc:contributor

• Guibbory, Achsah

• Literature, English

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3270035

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/81429