The Mystification of Christian Salvation: on the Anxiety of Redemption in Renaissance Poetry and Drama
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City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2015 The Mystification of Christian Salvation: On the Anxiety of Redemption in Renaissance Poetry and Drama Kimberly Paige Ambroziak Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/518 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] THE MYSTIFICATION OF CHRISTIAN SALVATION: On the Anxiety of Redemption in Renaissance Poetry and Drama by KIMBERLY PAIGE AMBROZIAK A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Comparative Literature in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2015 ii © 2015 KIMBERLY PAIGE AMBROZIAK All Rights Reserved iii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Comparative Literature in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Dr. Paul Oppenheimer 19 November 2014 Dr. Paul Oppenheimer Date Chair of Examining Committee Dr. Giancarlo Lombardi 19 November 2014 Dr. Giancarlo Lombardi Date Executive Officer Dr. Paul Oppenheimer Dr. Mary Ann Caws Dr. Joshua Wilner Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iv Abstract THE MYSTIFICATION OF CHRISTIAN SALVATION: On the Anxiety of Redemption in Renaissance Poetry and Drama by Kimberly Paige Ambroziak Adviser: Professor Paul Oppenheimer The Legend of the Red Crosse Knight, Doctor Faustus, Hamlet, and Samson Agonistes are secular poetic explorations with a common idea: the possibility of Christian salvation. These examples of the redemptive quest seem to reveal the uneasiness of salvation which is representative, if only broadly, of the atmosphere in which their authors were writing. More specifically, the intention of this study is to reveal the possibility and nature of Christian uncertainty as it is firmly rooted in the early modern period. As Christian doctrine proves protean from its beginnings in the first century to Protestant tracts in the sixteenth, these authors are not immune to the conflicting ideologies and shifting beliefs of their time. These four works thus offer insight into the fluctuating and malleable ideologies of Christianity, and ultimately reflect the ongoing development of theological principles. v THE MYSTIFICATION OF CHRISTIAN SALVATION: On the Anxiety of Redemption in Renaissance Poetry and Drama Table of Contents Chapter One: The Uneasiness of Christian Salvation 1 Platonic Currents 7 Dantean Echoes 13 Chapter Two: Divina Commedia in Spenser’s Red Crosse 21 The Errour of Fraud 28 That Bloody Tree 37 The Fixed Stars in the House of Holinesse 47 Chapter Three: The Pagan Piety in Doctor Faustus’s Religion 70 Setting up an Ancient Schema with Chariots of Ruin 84 Acheron: River of Redemption 98 A Final Plea to Nature 106 Chapter Four: The Straight Grave to Salvation: on Hamlet 109 The Gravedigger’s Philosophy 117 Hamlet’s Foil and Salvation 122 Beautified Ophelia, Beatified Magdalen 129 Ophelia’s Tokens of Death and Marriage 141 Chapter Five: The Strongman, the Baptist, and the Holy Spirit: On Milton’s Samson Agonistes 150 Samson’s Rousing Motions 153 vi The Strongman, the Baptist, and the Holy Spirit 163 A Virtue Self-Begotten, a Samson Aquiline 176 Works Cited 190 1 Chapter One The Uneasiness of Christian Salvation The Legend of the Red Crosse Knight, Doctor Faustus, Hamlet, and Samson Agonistes are secular poetic explorations with a common idea: the possibility of Christian salvation. These examples of the redemptive quest reveal the uneasiness of salvation which is representative, if only broadly, of the atmosphere in which their authors were writing. More specifically, the intention of this study is to reveal the possibility and nature of Christian uncertainty as it is firmly rooted in the early modern period. As Christian doctrine proves protean from its beginnings in the first century to Protestant tracts in the sixteenth, these authors are not immune to the conflicting ideologies and shifting beliefs of their time. These four works thus offer insight into the fluctuating and malleable ideologies of Christianity, and ultimately reflect the ongoing development of theological principles. Newton Stallknecht argues that ideas change when they are shared, as they are not “’units’ in some way comparable to coins or counters that can be passed intact from one group of people to another or even, for that matter, from one individual to another” (122). Because they are transmitted by words, “ideas exist not as ready made commodities but primarily—and here we must step beyond the definition already offered—as the ‘meaning’ latent in human efforts to communicate” (123).1 The author is not necessarily working to convince his audience of his idea; rather he is “more eager to make clear how an idea affects the life and colors the emotion of the person who entertains it” (125). This poetic aim seems nothing new. When C. S. Lewis sets out to show the “syncretistic Model” (12) of the universe, adopted and perfected in the Middle Ages, built from “harmonising views of” Platonic, 1 See Stallknecht 116-52; he claims that “the term idea refers to our more reflective or thoughtful consciousness as opposed to the immediacies of sensuous or emotional experience. It is through such reflection that literature approaches philosophy. An idea, let us say, may be roughly defined as a theme or topic with which our reflection may be concerned” (117). 2 Aristotelian, Stoical, Pagan and Christian elements, he notices that some admittedly Christian authors, such as Boethius in his Philosophiae consolationis, do not use a Christian scheme to expound their subject since it may impose limitations on their ability to relay their point.2 He suggests that Boethius not only knows where his literary talents lie—with philosophical discussion—but that he has another motive, if one less conscious, for writing his dialogue with Philosophia: The distinction between Christian and Pagan can hardly, at that moment, have been more vividly present to his emotions than that between Roman and barbarian … This was no time for stressing whatever divided him from Virgil, Seneca, Plato, and the old Republican heroes. He would have been robbed of half his comfort if he had chosen a theme which forced him to point out where the great ancient masters had been wrong; he preferred one that enabled him to feel how nearly they had been right, to think of them not as ‘they’ but as ‘we.’ (78) Lewis thus claims that Boethius relies on a classical setting and mode of dialogue, rather than a Christian one, because he intends to root his philosophy in the solid foundation of the ancients. His dialogue is suited for, and therefore more successful at, conveying his message of comfort if it can be associated with the ideas found in the writings of Christianity’s Pagan forefathers.3 The point is not to discover the poet’s religious faith, but to notice that he explores Christian themes within the limits of the settings and characters he invents. Although his message may be theological, his fiction is not Christian. For Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare and Milton, religious 2 “Christian authors” is here taken to imply the writer’s personal faith. Cf. Lewis, Discarded Image 76-91. 3 I use “Christianity’s Pagan forefathers” to represent the paganism that Christians inherited. For a study of the ancient influences on medieval doctrine, which presents the impact of the “enduring effect of the old [religion] upon the new,” see Lewis, Discarded Image 48-9. 3 affiliations neither hamper nor help the theological concepts which they put forward in their dramas. All four poets examine Christian salvation in some form or other, and it becomes the “‘meaning’ latent in [their] human efforts to communicate.” Religion often subscribes to some kind of doctrine that assumes a celestial existence after death for those who have followed its precepts.4 In late antiquity, Paradise was considered an idyllic place that “had three basic manifestations in religious beliefs: as a primordial region of perfection, as an intermediate locale where virtuous souls awaited resurrection, and as heaven, or the final dwelling place of the righteous” (Bowersock, et al. 635). The etymology of the word “paradise” is from “Old Iranian languages … in which it [is] designated a park surrounded by a wall,” and for Christianity it comes to be associated with the Garden of Eden, and thus “with a spiritual consequence of the Fall—original sin.”5 Arriving at Paradise, assuming its locale is attainable, therefore, may be the end goal of most religions, and the reason that man has any faith at all. Despite its challenges and pervasive influence, any doctrine of salvation will have a certain appeal if it offers the promise that man need only do such and such to be granted entrance into Paradise. If a man knows how to secure his place in heaven—intended here as the Christian celestial realm to where those granted the grace of God are swept up at their death—he may experience a sense of security, even if false, on a par with nothing else; it may be the closest thing to experiencing immortality. This kind of knowledge, however, which appears to divulge the secrets for earning God’s grace, is undermined by the many paths that are believed to lead to 4 From the state of nirvana in Buddhism to the Hindu concept of moksha to Sufism’s belief in Baqaa as the state of ideal perfection, called Najat in Islam, many traditional religions maintain that a state of being exists beyond death.