Religious Ideology and Cultural Fantasy: Catholic and Anti-Catholic Discourses in Early Modern England Book

"Religious Ideology and Cultural Fantasy draws on Arthur Marotti?s extraordinary command of both manuscript and printed sources to examine what early modern English Catholics said of themselves and what their legion of enemies said about them. Subtly argued, richly documented, and attractively written, this path-breaking book has much to tell us about the often violent construction of England?s fiercely Protestant national identity and the lives of those who stood in its way. A remarkable accomplishment." ?Richard Helgerson, author of Adulterous Alliances: Home, State, and History in Early Modern European Drama and Painting "Combining insights from literary theory and revisionist history, Marotti?s Religious Ideology and Cultural Fantasy is a major reevaluation of the religious literature of early modern England. In clear, precise prose, and with impressive scholarship, it skillfully reveals the larger narrative that has dominated our understanding of the literary expression of spirituality: tacit assent to the Reformed claim to a progressive view of a national history that casts Catholicism as regressive and authoritarian. Marotti reverses this judgment and uncovers an alternative trans-national narrative whose importance goes far beyond the religious texts he so deftly analyzes. Religious Ideology and Cultural Fantasy is necessary reading for anyone interested in how literature harnesses religion and politics to shape or resist national identity in Reformation England, but it also does much to explain the political dimension of contemporary religious discourse in Europe and America. Marotti?s book is more timely than ever." ?Martin Elsky, The Graduate Center, City University of New York "A gripping narrative and a must read for anyone interested in the fears and fantasies inspired by Catholics in post-Reformation England." ?James Shapiro, Columbia University, author of Shakespeare and the Jews In this new book, Arthur F. Marotti analyzes some of the rhetorical and imaginative means by which the Catholic minority and the Protestant majority defined themselves and their religious and political antagonists in early modern England. Marotti focuses on the period between the arrival of the first Jesuit missionaries in England in 1580 and the climax of ongoing religious conflict in the Restoration-era "Popish Plot" and the 1688 "Glorious Revolution." He covers such issues as the relationship of print culture to the residual Catholic culture in Elizabethan England; recusant women, Jesuits, and the cultural "othering" of Catholics; martyrdom accounts; polemically charged Catholic and Protestant narratives of conversion; and the depiction of Catholic plots or outrages and providential Protestant deliverances.Read More