Sacramental Signification: Eucharistic Poetics from Chaucer to Milton
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Sacramental Signification: Eucharistic Poetics from Chaucer to Milton Shaun Ross Department of English McGill University, Montreal August 2016 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy © Shaun Ross 2016 i Table of Contents Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………ii Resumé……………………………………………………………………………………………iv Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………….....vi Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter One: Medieval Sacraments: Immanence and Transcendence in The Pearl-poet and Chaucer………...23 Chapter Two: Southwell’s Mass: Sacrament and Self…………………………………………………………..76 Chapter Three: Herbert’s Eucharist: Giving More……………………………………………………………...123 Chapter Four: Donne’s Communions………………………………………………………………………….181 Chapter Five: Communion in Two Kinds: Milton’s Bread and Crashaw’s Wine……………………………. 252 Epilogue: The Future of Presence…………………………………………………………………………325 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………………….330 ii Abstract This dissertation argues that in early modern England the primary theoretical models by which poets understood how language means what it means were applications of eucharistic theology. The logic of this thesis is twofold, based firstly on the cultural centrality of the theology and practice of the eucharist in early modern England, and secondly on the particular engagement of poets within that social and intellectual context. My study applies this conceptual relationship, what I call “eucharistic poetics,” to English religious and lyric poetry as it evolved from the late medieval to the early modern period. Introducing my discussion with a consideration of two important late medieval English authors, Geoffrey Chaucer and the Pearl- poet, I focus on five key early modern poets—Robert Southwell, John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, and John Milton. The vigorous contemporary conflicts over the eucharist influenced these poets, I argue, not only because the sacrament reflected the central concerns of the late-medieval world and the Reformation, but also because it framed those concerns through a debate about signs: what these signs do, how they function, and, even more importantly, how poets relate to the signs they create. Poets, therefore, saw in the discordant theological positioning surrounding the eucharist a framework for understanding and exploring their own kind of written sign-making. This thesis, however, also challenges a dominant critical narrative that associates the presence of sacramental language in seventeenth-century poetry with the Protestant rejection of transubstantiation and, in turn, with a process of secularization. In part through its direct consideration of Catholic and medieval writing, it argues that “eucharistic poetry” is neither the unique product of early modern Protestantism, nor indicative of what has been read as one of Protestantism’s fruits, the birth of the modern “buffered” subject. Instead, I claim that the iii eucharist provides the poets I consider not only a model of signification, but a model of poetic agency, according to which the composition of poems opens the self to presences other than its own. iv Resumé Cette thèse soutient que dans l’Angleterre du début des temps modernes, les principaux modèles théoriques selon lesquels les poètes comprenaient comment le langage signifie ce qu’il signifie étaient des applications de la théologie de l’eucharistie. L’argumentaire s’appuie sur deux considérations : premièrement, la place centrale qu’occupaient la théologie et la pratique de l’eucharistie en Angleterre à cette époque; deuxièmement, la nature de l’engagement des poètes dans ce contexte social et intellectuel. Mon étude applique cette relation conceptuelle, que j’appelle la « poétique eucharistique », à la poésie lyrique et religieuse anglaise de la fin de la période médiévale jusqu’au début des temps modernes. J’introduis ma discussion en considérant deux auteurs anglais importants de la fin de la période médiévale, Geoffrey Chaucer et le poète de Pearl. Je tourne ensuite mon attention vers cinq poètes du début de la période moderne - Robert Southwell, John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw et John Milton. Je soutiens que les vigoureux débats contemporains sur l’eucharistie ont influencé ces poètes non seulement parce que le sacrement exprimait les principales préoccupations du monde de la fin de la période médiévale et de la Réforme, mais aussi parce qu’il fournissait un cadre conceptuel par le biais d’un débat sur les signes : ce que ces signes font, comment ils fonctionnent, et de façon encore plus importante, comment les poètes se rapportent aux signes qu’ils créent. Les poètes, ainsi, ont trouvé un cadre conceptuel pour comprendre et explorer leur propre genre de création de signes écrits dans les positions théologiques discordantes sur l’eucharistie. Cette thèse conteste aussi un discours critique dominant, qui associe la présence de langage sacramental dans la poésie du XVIIe siècle au rejet protestant de la transsubstantiation et au processus de sécularisation qui l’a suivi. En partie par sa considération directe d’écrits catholiques et médiévaux, elle soutient que la « poésie eucharistique » n’est ni un simple résultat v du protestantisme du début des temps modernes, ni un signe de ce qui est considéré un des résultats du protestantisme, la naissance du sujet autonomisé des temps modernes. Je prétends plutôt que l’eucharistie fournit aux poètes que je considère, non seulement un modèle de signification mais aussi un modèle d’action poétique indirecte, selon lequel la composition de poèmes ouvre le soi à d’autres présences que la sienne. vi Acknowledgements Writing this thesis has left me in the debt of many I could not hope to repay. I offer this small “sacrifice” of thanks for the grace, encouragement, and support I have received. First of all, I owe special thanks to Professor Maggie Kilgour, who made my time at McGill a challenge and a joy. She helped me become a clearer thinker and a better writer, and was a pillar of personal support on numerous occasions. I am profoundly grateful for her wisdom, guidance, and friendship. I am also deeply appreciative of the other faculty who worked with me at McGill, and from whom I learned a great deal, especially Professor Paul Yachnin, Professor Torrance Kirby, and Professor Michael Van Dussen. I am thankful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, who supported my research financially, and to the Department of English at McGill, who provided a number of travel grants, research assistantships, and gave me the opportunity to teach a wonderful cohort of students. Some of this work is forthcoming in English Literary Renaissance, and I wish to thank the editors and reviewers for their thoughtful suggestions. The community of friends I discovered at Emmaus Anglican Church were largely responsible for my sanity as I wrote. They taught me as much about the eucharist as any of the authors or scholars who appear in the following pages. I am particularly thankful to Claire and Eric Latimer, who translated the abstract of this dissertation into French, and Jacob Wiens, who graciously proofed a portion of this dissertation. There are no words that can express how grateful I am to my mother, Melanie Ross, and my sister, Kathleen Ross, who were my cheerleaders and volunteer editors throughout. To my devoted wife Nicki, without whom this project could never have been completed, no thanks will vii ever be sufficient. You are the firmness that makes my circle just. Thanks as well to my daughter Penelope, my best piece of poetry. This thesis is dedicated to my late father, Malcolm Ross, who will always be present in everything I write. 1 Introduction: The Presence of the Eucharist in Late Medieval and Early Modern English Poetry In the 1549 Book of Common Prayer, the first Protestant liturgy instituted systematically in England, the heading for the eucharistic rubric reads: d THE SUPPER c of the Lorde, and the holy Com -munion, commonly cal- led the Masse.1 Like much of Cranmer’s text, this heading pointedly announces its theological reforms at the same time that it suggests a degree of continuity with the traditions of pre-Reformation practice. The capitalized “SUPPER” at the top of the page, which emphasizes the sacrament as a shared meal that remembers Christ’s Last Supper, clearly identifies what follows as Protestant. Yet Cranmer makes a subtle appeal to readers ambivalent about his reforming goals with the addition, “commonly called the Masse.” This is partially a practical addendum. It would have helped many of the English clergy, often not terribly well educated in the new theologies of the Reformation, to navigate the new handbook and recognize that here was the liturgy replacing the missal. The text is implicitly corrective, reminding its readers that the eucharist is only commonly called the Mass. Even so, it still suggests some sense of basic continuity between the age-old celebration of the Latin rite and the new communion liturgy. The heading does not make an absolute distinction between the Mass, which for folk like Calvin was a papistical heresy, and the Lord’s Supper, which many Reformers saw as something else entirely. For Cranmer, the liturgy of the Mass needed to be edited for doctrine, and brought into line with scripture, but the ritual itself did not need to be abandoned. Cranmer was quite happy to 1 All quotations from The Book of Common Prayer come from Brian Cummings, ed.