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Pricked Hearts and Penitent Tears: Embodying Protestant Repentance in Robert Southwell's Saint Peter's Complaint (1595)

Pricked Hearts and Penitent Tears: Embodying Protestant Repentance in Robert Southwell's... <p>Abstract:</p><p>Among Protestant readers, Jesuit Robert Southwell&apos;s <i>Saint Peter&apos;s Complaint</i> was a surprise best seller. First published in 1595, one month after his martyrdom, South-well&apos;s poem underwent thirteen editions by 1634. This essay examines the grounds of that popularity by exploring how Southwell&apos;s portrayal of Peter&apos;s repentance might have appealed to readers across confessional boundaries. It contends that Southwell&apos;s familiarity with the landscape of affective piety in post-Reformation England allowed him to make a self-conscious entreaty to Elizabethan readers caught in the crossfire of reform. It first examines the affective contours of repentance depicted in Protestant devotional works, many of which were rooted in Calvinist movements of sorrowfulness, mortification of the flesh, and vivification of the spirit. Southwell, it argues, distends these movements in <i>Saint Peter&apos;s Complaint</i> in a way that echoes not only Protestant conceptions of penitent weeping but also Protestant pastoral practices. This cross-confessional deployment of religious affects highlights the overlapping practices of piety within Protestant and Catholic devotion. It also intimates the methods by which South-well might have utilized devotional poetry in service to evangelism.</p> http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Studies in Philology University of North Carolina Press

Pricked Hearts and Penitent Tears: Embodying Protestant Repentance in Robert Southwell&apos;s Saint Peter&apos;s Complaint (1595)

Snyder, Jillian M.
Studies in Philology , Volume 117 (2) – Mar 25, 2020
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Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © Studies in Philology, Incorporated
ISSN
1543-0383

Abstract

<p>Abstract:</p><p>Among Protestant readers, Jesuit Robert Southwell&apos;s <i>Saint Peter&apos;s Complaint</i> was a surprise best seller. First published in 1595, one month after his martyrdom, South-well&apos;s poem underwent thirteen editions by 1634. This essay examines the grounds of that popularity by exploring how Southwell&apos;s portrayal of Peter&apos;s repentance might have appealed to readers across confessional boundaries. It contends that Southwell&apos;s familiarity with the landscape of affective piety in post-Reformation England allowed him to make a self-conscious entreaty to Elizabethan readers caught in the crossfire of reform. It first examines the affective contours of repentance depicted in Protestant devotional works, many of which were rooted in Calvinist movements of sorrowfulness, mortification of the flesh, and vivification of the spirit. Southwell, it argues, distends these movements in <i>Saint Peter&apos;s Complaint</i> in a way that echoes not only Protestant conceptions of penitent weeping but also Protestant pastoral practices. This cross-confessional deployment of religious affects highlights the overlapping practices of piety within Protestant and Catholic devotion. It also intimates the methods by which South-well might have utilized devotional poetry in service to evangelism.</p>

Journal

Studies in Philology – University of North Carolina Press

Published: Mar 25, 2020

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