Sacerdotal self-fashioning: Priesthood on the poetry of Robert Southwell, S.J. and John Donne.
Item
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Title
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Sacerdotal self-fashioning: Priesthood on the poetry of Robert Southwell, S.J. and John Donne.
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Identifier
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AAI9707143
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identifier
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9707143
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Creator
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Pilarz, Scott Ronald.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Richard McCoy
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Date
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1996
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, Comparative | Literature, English | Religion, Clergy
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Abstract
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This dissertation studies the poetry of Southwell and Donne through the lens of priesthood and argues that the relationship between priestly and poetic vocations offers an opening to issues in Renaissance culture. During their lifetimes, these men were mostly identified in terms of what they did rather than on the basis of what they wrote. Therefore, we might benefit from studying their poems with an eye toward what ministry meant to them. Few critics have considered Southwell in the context of the first Jesuits and their "way of proceeding." This is crucial, however, because he wrote poetry only after recognizing its ministerial potential. His poems were pastoral tools. Rarely did he write for the sake of self-exploration. Southwell wants to get out of what he hopes is God's way, and his works are constructed for the purpose of raising readers from observers to participants in the experiences represented in the text. There is little room for the idiosyncratic here because Southwell understands that this undermines his pastoral purpose. If Southwell's operative notion is a poetic of participation, Donne's case is different. As he writes his way out of the Roman Church and into the Church of England, Donne suffers a spiritual paralysis from which he recovers only after he comes to believe in the saving power of his own voice. His poems record a vocational discernment characterized by religious integrity. Until he experiences salvation by articulation, Donne avoids taking orders. He writes for the sake of carving out some space for himself, and this space ultimately takes the shape of a pulpit from which he can preach a word that is as much his own as it is God's. Because we can watch Donne do all this, it is possible to describe his operating principle as a poetic of observation. His verses do not invite readers to stand in the poet's place in order to engage the mystery at hand. At a remove from the action, we observe Donne "wrastle" with God while defining sacerdotal identity on the poet's own terms.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
