Pan-Protestant Heroism in Early Modern England
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PAN-PROTESTANT HEROISM IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND Kevin Chovanec A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Caronlina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English and Comparative Literature. Chapel Hill 2016 Approved by: Reid Barbour David Baker Ruth von Bernuth Mary Floyd Wilson Jessica Wolfe ©2016 Kevin Chovanec ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Kevin Chovanec, “Pan-Protestant Heroism in Early Modern England” (Under the Direction of Reid Barbour) “Pan-Protestant Heroism in Early Modern England” explores transnational religious identifications in England by tracing the written response to and construction of Protestant heroes of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, among them, Willem and Maurits van Oranje, Henry Stuart, Friedrich V, and Gustavus Adolphus. Intervening in the critical conversation on early modern nation-writing and the construction of Englishness, I argue that continental figures like these profoundly shaped English identity in the early modern period. While most historians believe that nationalism and indeed the nation are constructs of a later period, Richard Helgerson, Claire McEachern, and others have posited the sixteenth century as a key moment in the construction of England. Yet this research, and even more recent multinational approaches that consider how foreigners shaped English identity, focuses too heavily on ethnic alterity and neglects the ways in which religious communion provided alternate possible identities. I argue that the transnational lens of pan-Protestant heroism uncovers literary communities and collaboration generally obscured by our nationalized conception of literature. Heroic figures attracted literary responses – in poems lionizing their accomplishments, theorizing their roles in God’s church, and eventually mourning their deaths – responses that spanned across political and linguistic borders. Protestant writers throughout Europe shared the same tropes, types, and literary genres when celebrating these idealized men. Through my research, I question the anachronistic national organization of early modern literature. I consider German, Dutch, and neo-Latin writing on these figures because English writers clearly understand iii themselves to be participating in a transnational project – part of a wider pan-Protestant literary field. Heroes posed a series of questions for English Protestants at home: what was England’s position within the Protestant church? What were English obligations to their often-suffering coreligionists on the continent? How were English and Protestant identity related? Religion has too often been read as a purely centripetal force, binding the English together, and this tendency has effaced strong, alternative collective identities. Instead, identification with pan-Protestantism and its heroes rendered early modern conceptions of foreignness especially fluid. A focus on these heroes therefore helps us uncover specific, alternative forms of early modern religious identity, trace how they changed, and understand the literary communities they cemented. iv For my parents, John and Lynn Chovanec v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In reading widely in the elegiac tradition – or really any poetic tradition in the early modern period – one thing becomes particularly conspicuous: repetition. Hardly a mournful or adulatory sentiment can be expressed that has not already been said elsewhere, and likely said with more skill. Acknowledgement sections are the modern equivalent, and there’s always some anxiety that the repetition will dull the real sense of gratefulness. For, as others have said, a project this long could never have been completed without the assistance and generosity of many mentors and friends. I feel incredibly fortunate to have ended up in a department filled with such brilliant scholars and good people. My thanks to the English Department, the Graduate School, and all the students I have had the opportunity to meet and discuss literature with at the University of North Carolina. The Renaissance faculty, especially, have been unfailingly generous with their time, insightful with their suggestions, and dedicated to their students. Megan Matchinske helped shape both my thought and identity as a scholar throughout my time at UNC. Darryl Gless was one of the kindest and most generous scholars I’ve met, and I’m grateful I was able to work with him, though too briefly. David Baker’s thoughtful engagement with my work led (and is still leading) the project in exciting directions. Mary Floyd Wilson has a great gift of being able to locate the kernel of an argument, and I learned an enormous amount about both my own work and how to engage with other scholars from our conversations (and her seminars, some of the best I’ve ever participated in, helped me not lose sight of the period’s drama). Ruth Von Bernuth vi was incredibly accommodating and welcomed me into her German classes. She has always been eager to discuss my work and share her expertise, and has opened up amazing opportunities to meet German scholars and study at German libraries. Jessica Wolfe, who in addition to generously reading my work and encouraging me throughout my graduate career, has taught me more than anyone about the profession: from my first year, she has been willing to meet time and again to discuss not just scholarship, but logistics: grant writing, phone interviews, articles, and all the other minutia of scholarly life. Finally, my director, Reid Barbour, will always be my favorite scholar. His contagious passion for the field and the research, his amazing energy and enthusiasm, and his dedication to and care for his students have greatly facilitated my dissertation and, more importantly, helped me continue to love academia even during difficult stretches. If I can positively impact half as many students as he has, I will consider my career successful. I’d like to also thank my professors at Marquette, who first made English literature so appealing. John Curran, especially, who taught a Shakespeare class in 2004 that transformed me from a Mathematics major, focusing on actuarial statistics, into an English major. This transformation had negative economic consequences, of course, but, I hope, positive moral, social, emotional, and even physical consequences. (One can only spend so many years as an actuary, calculating how likely people are to die, before his or her health suffers.) Most importantly, I’d like to thank my wife. Coming in to graduate school, I had heard that these would be the loneliest and most difficult years of my life; but I was fortunate enough to meet her during my first semester, and they have instead been the happiest. The value of having a perceptive and kind colleague as a partner is inestimable – it improves your work, your teaching, your sanity. She deserves a dedication, but I haven’t yet written anything good enough vii to dedicate to her. Maybe someday. I dedicated the dissertation to my parents, who never once tried to dissuade me from studying the Humanities, and have provided constant support, encouragement, and love. Anyone who begins a dissertation now must be confronted with the overwhelming (and at times intimidating) deluge of scholarship already in place. Scarcely a topic, scarcely a text, has not yet been admirably and learnedly investigated. It feels like arrogance to imagine I have anything to add. And yet, conversations go on, and what luck to find so many brilliant people interested in the same things. It’s a great privilege to be able to discuss literature, to discuss religion and history, to talk about interesting or odd facets of the past. I’m thankful that there is a discussion, and I’m grateful that I have been allowed to participate. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: “BUT ONE BODY”: EARLY MODERN TRANSNATIONALISM AND ENGLISH LITERATURE .............................................. 1 Nationalism and Transnationalism, Modern and Early Modern ........................... 15 Who is the Church? ............................................................................................... 20 Metaphors of the Church ...................................................................................... 36 Is Gods Kingdom a Nation? .................................................................................. 59 John Foxe’s Prayer for “the Church and all the States Thereof” .......................... 65 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 69 CHAPTER ONE: DUTCHNESS AND THE ENGLISH NATION................................. 74 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 74 Pamphlets of the Dutch Revolt ............................................................................. 83 Emblems of Unity ............................................................................................... 101 English Heroes of the Dutch Revolt ................................................................... 106 The House of Orange .......................................................................................... 112 Transnationalism in The Faerie Queene ............................................................. 130 A Larum for London: Anglo-Dutch Unity on the English Stage ........................ 141 Conclusion .........................................................................................................