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Recasting Recantation in 1540s England: Thomas Becon, Robert Wisdom, and Robert Crowley

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The legacy of John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments has urged scholars of the English Reformation to consider martyrdom the ultimate act of resistance, and recantation as an embarrassing lapse of faith. However, more recent criticism has drawn attention to the subversive potential of the false recantation, arguing that such events were not necessarily acts of capitulation but opportunities for covert evangelism and even shameless self-promotion. This article develops the above argument through an examination of the reformist Thomas Becon’s recantation of 1543, highlighting its innovative use of explicitly theatrical tropes to convey a message of falsity. However, the recantation’s potential for irony is shown to result in a lack of ideological stability in the narrative. Such instability, I argue, leads to further attempts to resolve or alter the meaning of a recantation through textual commentary. By means of close readings of the notable counter-recantation texts of Robert Wisdom and Robert Crowley, I demonstrate that the meaning of a recantation continues to be altered after the fact. Yet the defining quality of these texts is shown to be their confused and self-contradictory nature. I conclude that the continued argumentative oscillation of these texts indicates their ultimate failure to satisfactorily close down meaning and restore certainty to the co-religionist community. La postérité des Acts and Monuments de John Foxe a poussé les spécialistes de la Réforme anglaise à considérer le martyre comme l’ultime acte de résistance et le reniement comme une gênante défaillance de la foi. Toutefois, des travaux plus récents ont souligné le potentiel subversif du reniement feint, en avançant que de telles actions n’étaient pas forcément des gestes de capitulation mais plutôt des manières de se livrer à une discrète évangélisation, voire à une auto-promotion assumée. Cet article développe cette hypothèse en examinant le reniement du réformiste Thomas Becon en 1543, soulignant son utilisation novatrice d’éléments explicitement théâtraux pour transmettre un message mensonger. On remarque cependant que le potentiel d’ironie du reniement aboutit à une incertitude idéologique du récit. Nous avançons qu’une telle instabilité idéologique entraîne de nouveaux commentaires écrits cherchant à interpréter, réduire ou modifier la signification du reniement. Au moyen d’une lecture attentive des textes de contre-reniement importants, comme ceux de Robert Wisdom et de Robert Crowley, nous montrons que la signification d’un reniement continue de se transformer après les faits. Il apparaît aussi que ces textes se caractérisent principalement par leur confusion et leur contradiction inhérentes. Nous en concluons que l’oscillation continuelle que l’on observe dans l’argumentation de ces textes révèle leur incapacité dernière à régler de façon satisfaisante la question de la signification du reniement et à rétablir une certitude auprès de la communauté.
University of Toronto Libraries - UOTL
Title: Recasting Recantation in 1540s England: Thomas Becon, Robert Wisdom, and Robert Crowley
Description:
The legacy of John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments has urged scholars of the English Reformation to consider martyrdom the ultimate act of resistance, and recantation as an embarrassing lapse of faith.
However, more recent criticism has drawn attention to the subversive potential of the false recantation, arguing that such events were not necessarily acts of capitulation but opportunities for covert evangelism and even shameless self-promotion.
This article develops the above argument through an examination of the reformist Thomas Becon’s recantation of 1543, highlighting its innovative use of explicitly theatrical tropes to convey a message of falsity.
However, the recantation’s potential for irony is shown to result in a lack of ideological stability in the narrative.
Such instability, I argue, leads to further attempts to resolve or alter the meaning of a recantation through textual commentary.
By means of close readings of the notable counter-recantation texts of Robert Wisdom and Robert Crowley, I demonstrate that the meaning of a recantation continues to be altered after the fact.
Yet the defining quality of these texts is shown to be their confused and self-contradictory nature.
I conclude that the continued argumentative oscillation of these texts indicates their ultimate failure to satisfactorily close down meaning and restore certainty to the co-religionist community.
La postérité des Acts and Monuments de John Foxe a poussé les spécialistes de la Réforme anglaise à considérer le martyre comme l’ultime acte de résistance et le reniement comme une gênante défaillance de la foi.
Toutefois, des travaux plus récents ont souligné le potentiel subversif du reniement feint, en avançant que de telles actions n’étaient pas forcément des gestes de capitulation mais plutôt des manières de se livrer à une discrète évangélisation, voire à une auto-promotion assumée.
Cet article développe cette hypothèse en examinant le reniement du réformiste Thomas Becon en 1543, soulignant son utilisation novatrice d’éléments explicitement théâtraux pour transmettre un message mensonger.
On remarque cependant que le potentiel d’ironie du reniement aboutit à une incertitude idéologique du récit.
Nous avançons qu’une telle instabilité idéologique entraîne de nouveaux commentaires écrits cherchant à interpréter, réduire ou modifier la signification du reniement.
Au moyen d’une lecture attentive des textes de contre-reniement importants, comme ceux de Robert Wisdom et de Robert Crowley, nous montrons que la signification d’un reniement continue de se transformer après les faits.
Il apparaît aussi que ces textes se caractérisent principalement par leur confusion et leur contradiction inhérentes.
Nous en concluons que l’oscillation continuelle que l’on observe dans l’argumentation de ces textes révèle leur incapacité dernière à régler de façon satisfaisante la question de la signification du reniement et à rétablir une certitude auprès de la communauté.

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