An estimate of the life and writings of the greatest poet of sacred verse in the golden age of lyric expression.

It has traditionally been held that Robert Southwell’s poetry offers a curious view of Elizabethan England, one that is from the restricted perspective of a priest-hole. This book dismantles that idea by examining the poetry, word by word, discovering layers of new meanings, hidden emblems, and sharp critiques of Elizabeth’s courtiers, and even of the ageing queen herself. Using both the most recent edition of Southwell’s poetry and manuscript materials, it addresses both poetry and private writings including letters and diary material to give dramatic context to the radicalisation of a generation of Southwell’s countrymen and women, showing how the young Jesuit harnessed both drama and literature to give new poetic poignancy to their experience. Bringing a rigorously forensic approach to Southwell’s ‘lighter’ pieces, Sweeney can now show to what extent Southwell engaged exclusively through them in direct artistic debate with Spenser, Sidney, and Shakespeare, placing the poetry firmly in the English landscape familiar to Southwell’s generation. Those interested in early modern and Elizabethan culture will find much of interest, including new insights into the function of the arts in the private Catholic milieu touched by Southwell in so many ways and places.

In this book, Scott Pilarz explores how the literary legacy of Robert Southwell, S.J. kept his voice alive after his hanging in 1595. The Elizabethan establishment viewed Southwell as a subversive, and he has received only scant attention from scholars in the centuries since his death. Pilarz restores the Jesuit poet to his rightful position of importance in literature and history, showing how Southwell's works mark the point of convergence of aesthetic, theological, political and personal influences that determined the ethos of the period. The study offers fresh insight into energies that shaped early modern culture, and provokes more sophisticated and respectful analysis of religion in literature.