With the notable exception of John Donne, Elizabethan satirists rarely appear to engage with matters of faith. This is notably so despite that several writers of satire at the time would later pursue clerical careers (apart from Donne, also Joseph Hall and John Marston). While this absence may have been a question of decorum, of what was considered suitable matter for a secular (and controversial) genre, this paper argues that Elizabethan satire in the wake of the Marprelate controversy took on specific connotations of immoderation that ran counter to the via media as represented by the Church of England. This ‘guilt by association’ should furthermore be understood in connection with John Whitgift’s status as responsible for the so-called Bishops’ Ban and as a staunch enforcer of a moderate Anglican via media vis-a-vis Puritanism. In other words, the relative absence of religious issues in Elizabethan satires themselves does not preclude a reception that infused them with notions of theological and political controversy.
Ej belagd 190515