Procuring Immortality: Eschatological Reform and the Pursuit of Worldly Fame in English Renaissance Literature

获得不朽：英国文艺复兴时期文学中的末世论改革和对世俗名誉的追求

• 批准号: 2570964
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Birmingham
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2570964
• 关键词: Procuring; Immortality; Eschatological; Reform; Pursuit

My thesis will consider how early modern English citizens envisaged death and the afterlife, exploring how the changing religious culture of the Protestant Reformation influenced traditional eschatological beliefs. Historians such as Eamon Duffy and Peter Marshall have written extensively on the subjects of early modern eschatology and attitudes towards death, however, a distinctive element of my research methodology is to investigate how these topics were portrayed within Renaissance literature. I will conduct a new historicist study considering the extent to which early modern literature mirrors contemporary societal concerns and conversely, how Elizabethan and Jacobean social attitudes were influenced by Renaissance literature. By studying the historical and literary texts of this period, I endeavour to prove that there is a direct correlation between the curtailment of Catholic commemorative rituals, and the emerging societal appetite for worldly fame and self-memorialisation.Thomas Rist, Stephen Greenblatt, Clara Calvo, and Ton Hoenselaars have all published research investigating theatrical depictions of death and remembrance, however their studies overlook the methods adopted by Renaissance characters, prior to death, to secure their own post-mortem remembrance. Therefore, my study will be influential to this critical field as it will argue that Renaissance dramatists responded to the dissolution of the relationship between the living and the dead by portraying characters who endeavour to guarantee their own immortality, by establishing an enduring worldly legacy.I will develop the research of my Master's degree dissertation which considered how changing doctrinal attitudes towards the dead were reflected in Renaissance revenge drama, arguing that revenge essentially functions as an act of remembrance, performed in defiance of Reformed Protestant eschatology. In my PhD thesis, I will expand my focus beyond the revenge tragedy genre to consider the influence of the Protestant Reformation, and the associated changes to eschatological doctrine and funerary commemoration, upon early modern literature and social culture.

我的论文将考虑早期现代英国公民如何设想死亡和来世，探索新教改革的不断变化的宗教文化如何影响传统的末世论信仰。埃蒙·达菲（Eamon Duffy）和彼得·马歇尔（Peter Marshall）等历史学家就早期现代末世论和对死亡的态度等主题撰写了大量文章，然而，我的研究方法的一个独特要素是调查文艺复兴文学中如何描绘这些主题。我将进行一项新的历史主义研究，考虑早期现代文学在多大程度上反映了当代社会问题，以及反过来，伊丽莎白一世和詹姆士一世时期的社会态度如何受到文艺复兴时期文学的影响。通过研究这一时期的历史和文学文本，我努力证明天主教纪念仪式的减少与社会对世俗名誉和自我纪念的新兴胃口之间存在直接关联。托马斯·里斯特，斯蒂芬·格林布拉特，克拉拉·卡尔沃、托恩·霍恩塞拉斯（Ton Hoenselaars）都发表了研究，调查戏剧对死亡和纪念的描述，但他们的研究忽视了文艺复兴时期的人物在死亡之前所采用的方法，以确保他们的生命安全。自己的死后记忆。因此，我的研究将对这一批判领域产生影响，因为它将论证文艺复兴剧作家通过描绘努力保证自己不朽的人物，通过建立持久的世俗遗产来应对生者与死者之间关系的瓦解。将开展我的硕士学位论文的研究，该论文考虑了文艺复兴时期复仇戏剧中如何反映对死者的教义态度的变化，认为复仇本质上是一种纪念行为，是对改革宗的蔑视新教末世论。在我的博士论文中，我将把我的注意力扩展到复仇悲剧类型之外，以考虑新教改革以及末世学说和丧葬纪念的相关变化对早期现代文学和社会文化的影响。