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How we got here
As an early modernist, my main area of
interest is Protestant editions, adaptations and
translations of Catholic literature in early modern
England. For a couple of my (relatively) recent papers
on
the subject, see "The Protestant reception of Catholic
devotional literature in England to 1700"
(Recusant History, Vol. 32, No. 1 (2014), pp.
67-89;
open-access version here), and "Robert Persons’s Resolution
(1582)
and the issue of textual piracy in Protestant
editions of Catholic devotional literature"
(Reformation and Renaissance Review, Vol. 15,
No. 2,
2013, pp. 177-98; open-access version here). See also my monograph, Catholic Literature and the
Rise of Anglicanism. Most of my other
publications can be found on Google
Scholar, with open-access versions on ResearchGate.
There are several ways in which
Protestant editions of Catholic works may differ from
the original Catholic text. Obvious references to
Catholicism will often have been removed, or words
like "adversary" and "Catholic" may be interpreted
differently. But one of the most striking uses of
Catholic texts by Protestants was simply to reproduce
the text as is, with the comment that, without any
alteration or emendation of any kind, it is manifestly
absurd.
This method of condemning the Catholics out of their
own mouth is exemplified by John Smith's edition of
Puccini's life of Magdalena de' Pazzi, which I discuss
at some length in
“'O That Mine
Adversary Had Written a Book!' Translations of
Catholic Literature and the Eroticization of Pain in
Seventeenth-Century England” (Translation and
Literature, vol. 20, no. 2, 2011, pp. 175–190;
open-access version here). It
is curious that Smith focuses on the "extravagant
inventions of Miracles and Apparitions" described in
this work, and makes no mention of the bondage,
flagellation and other penances and humiliations with
which the text is liberally peppered, but it did get me
thinking about the different ways in which Catholics and
Protestants conceived of and processed suffering.
Other texts - notably Rycault's translation of Baltazar
Gracián’s El Criticón, and numerous Protestant
editions across Europe of Saint Jerome's Life of
Saint Paul the Hermit - made it clear that there
was a systematic difference between the way religious
suffering was presented to Catholic readers and the way
in which it was edited for Protestant consumption. To
put it very baldly, sexually-charged descriptions of a
woman who captivates and enthrals and inveigles victims
into complicity in their own humiliation (Gracián), or of a prostitute
who mocks a young man’s chastity by stimulating an
erection while he is lying bound to a feather bed
(Jerome), which functioned well enough in Catholic
devotional literature of the time, simply had no place
in Protestant religious discourse, any more than did
the extreme penances of some of the Catholic aspirants
to sainthood, such as de' Pazzi.
And so the idea was sown; I would write a book on
early modern attitudes towards suffering. I was
fortunate enough to obtain a year-long sabbatical in
2011-12, and spent pretty much the entire time in the
Rare Books Room in Cambridge University Library. The
book came out in 2013 and is available on Amazon.
I've also posted further thoughts, updates and related
matters to a blog.
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