Skepticism And Social Struggle In Early Modern England

The central thesis of this book is that skepticism was instrumental to the defense of orthodox religion and the development of the identity of the Church of England. Examining the presence of skepticism in non-fiction prose literature at four transitional moments in English Protestant history during which orthodoxy was challenged and revised, Melissa Caldwell argues that a skeptical mode of thinking is embedded in the literary and rhetorical choices made by English writers who straddle the project of reform and the maintenance of orthodoxy after the Reformation in England. Far from being a radical belief simply indicative of an emerging secularism, she demonstrates the varied and complex appropriations of skeptical thought in early modern England. By examining a selection of various kinds of literature-including religious polemic, dialogue, pamphlets, sermons, and treatises-produced at key moments in early modern England’s religious history, Caldwell shows how the writers under consideration capitalized on the unscripted moral space that emerged in the wake of the Reformation. The result was a new kind of discourse--and a new form of orthodoxy--that sought both to exploit and to contain the skepticism unearthed by the Reformation.

The result was a powerful current of skepticism with extraordinary consequences. Combined with late-seventeenth-century developments in other areas of thought and writing, it produced skepticism about the possibility of gaining any historical knowledge at all." "Joining the history of ideas to the history of journalism and publishing, Dooley sets out to discover when early modern people believed their political informants and when they did not."--BOOK JACKET.

A ground-breaking study of the social and cultural functions of the early modern theatre. Jean Howard looks at the effects of drama and the stage on early modern culture in an exciting and eminently readable work.

Early modern English culture was marked by a prolonged and multi-faceted struggle with uncertainty. This epistemological crisis took place on several fronts, crossing elite and popular discourses: in the clash of confessional convictions, the ramifications of Calvin's doctrine of election, the long complications of Elizabethan succession, and the threat to traditions of natural philosophy by the burgeoning field of experimental science, to name a few sites of disturbance. A restless cultural awareness emerged that certainty, whether in earthly matters or those of God, might not be possible. In Spectacular Skepticism: Visual Contradiction on the Early Modern English Stage, I show that this general engagement with skeptical irresolution found a place on the English stage: the theater induced doubt in its spectators by staging visually paradoxical spectacles. I argue that the theater was an essential tool for the development of a set of skeptical ethics in popular discourse. Using Richard Popkin's The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza (1979) as a philosophical basis, recent works by William Hamlin and Anita Gilman Sherman, for example, place the theater alongside the renewed interest in classical skepticism that, Popkin shows, transformed Continental intellectual culture in the second half of the sixteenth century. Though the intellectual culture of skepticism is crucial to my own work, I find that these studies miss an opportunity to consider what specific cultural practices acquainted spectators of the theater with uncertaintymost of whom, after all, were unfamiliar with the skepticisms of Cicero and Sextus Empiricus. But I mean to do more than to recalibrate our sense of the cultural background of theatrical plotting; my purpose is to show more clearly how doubt is spectacularized. Since the publication of Jonathan Dollimore's Radical Tragedy (1984) and Graham Bradshaw's Shakespeares Scepticism (1987), as well as Stanley Cavell's magisterial Disowning Knowledge in Six Plays of Shakespeare (1988), scholars have examined uncertainty in drama by studying characters -- Hamlet is the most celebrated example -- who themselves experience the anguish of doubt. I argue that conventions of confounding visual spectaclefor example, the incorporeal ghost of Hamlet's father played by a live actor, the materiality of his body all the more emphasized by his heavy armorto a greater degree than the uncertainty of characters, put skepticisms systematic assault on appearances on theatrical display, and in so doing, invited an imaginative experience of doubt on the part of its spectators. Visual contradictions on the early modern stage constructed a skeptical spectatorship in the theater.

"This ambitious account of skepticism's effects on major authors of England's Golden Age shows how key philosophical problems inspired literary innovations in poetry and prose. When figures like Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert of Cherbury, Cavendish, Marvell and Milton question theories of language, degrees of knowledge and belief, and dwell on the uncertainties of perception, they forever change English literature, ushering it into a secular mode. While tracing a narrative arc from medieval nominalism to late seventeenth-century taste, the book explores the aesthetic pleasures and political quandaries induced by skeptical doubt. It also incorporates modern philosophical views of skepticism: those of Stanley Cavell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Roland Barthes, and Hans Blumenberg, among others. The book thus contributes to interdisciplinary studies of philosophy and literature as well as to current debates about skepticism as a secularizing force, fostering civil liberties and religious freedoms. --

The final decades of the sixteenth century brought tumultuous change in England. Bitter disputes concerning religious reformation divided Catholics and Protestants, radical reformers, and religious conservatives. The Church of England won the loyalty of many, but religious and political dissent continued. Social and economic change also created anxiety as social mobility, unemployment, riots, and rebellions exposed the weakness of an ideology of order. The Time is Out of Joint situates the work of four skeptics - Reginald Scot, Thomas Harriot, Christopher Marlowe, and William Shakespeare - within the context of religious and social change. These four writers responded to the dislocations of the newly formed Protestant nation by raising bold and often disturbing questions about religion and epistemology. The historical topics covered in this book - witchcraft debates, New World discovery, economic struggle, and religious reformation - reveal the diverse contexts in which skepticism appeared and the many contributions skepticism made to a nation undergoing radical change and in the process of re-thinking many of its longstanding basic assumptions.

Readers of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies have long noted the absence of readily explainable motivations for some of Shakespeare’s greatest characters: why does Hamlet delay his revenge for so long? Why does King Lear choose to renounce his power? Why is Othello so vulnerable to Iago’s malice? But while many critics have chosen to overlook these omissions or explain them away, Millicent Bell demonstrates that they are essential elements of Shakespeare’s philosophy of doubt. Examining the major tragedies, Millicent Bell reveals the persistent strain of philosophical skepticism. Like his contemporary, Montaigne, Shakespeare repeatedly calls attention to the essential unknowability of our world. In a period of social, political, and religious upheaval, uncertainty hovered over matters great and small—the succession of the crown, the death of loved ones from plague, the failure of a harvest. Tumultuous social conditions raised ultimate questions for Shakespeare, Bell argues, and ultimately provoked in him a skepticism which casts shadows of existential doubt over his greatest masterpieces.

Continuing the tradition of historiographic studies, this volume provides an update on research in Reformation and early modern Europe. Written by expert scholars in the field, these eighteen essays explore the fundamental points of Reformation and early modern history in religious studies, European regional studies, and social and cultural studies. Authors review the present state of research in the field, new trends, key issues scholars are working with, and fundamental works in their subject area, including the wide range of electronic resources now available to researchers. Reformation and Early Modern Europe: A Guide to Research is a valuable resource for students and scholars of early modern Europe.

This book is an interdisciplinary study of the forms and uses of doubt in works by Homer, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Cicero, Machiavelli, Shakespeare and Montaigne. Based on close analysis of literary and philosophical texts by these important authors, Michelle Zerba argues that doubt is a defining experience in antiquity and the Renaissance, one that constantly challenges the limits of thought and representation. The wide-ranging discussion considers issues that run the gamut from tragic loss to comic bombast, from psychological collapse to skeptical dexterity and from solitary reflection to political improvisation in civic contexts and puts Greek and Roman treatments of doubt into dialogue not only with sixteenth-century texts but with contemporary works as well. Using the past to engage questions of vital concern to our time, Zerba demonstrates that although doubt sometimes has destructive consequences, it can also be conducive to tolerance, discovery and conversation across sociopolitical boundaries.