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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
The validity of bringing together the works of writers who may have little in common other than their religious allegiance is not something which could be justified in every age, especially within the current ecumenical climate. Two anthologies of Catholic poets, Shane Leslie's of 1925 and Frank Sheed's of 1943 may appear to today's reader rather more revelatory of the taste and beliefs of the compilers and their periods than of the poets concerned. Yet it can be claimed that scrutiny of the religious poetry of Catholic writers of the first half of the seventeenth century has a validity which might be lacking in a later period. If religious poetry is indeed the expression of sincere conviction, it is to be expected that writers who have different beliefs will differ also in the forms of expression they give to them in their poetry. In the light of this, the question may be asked as to how, in the seventeenth century, the religious poetry written by Catholics differs from that written by Protestants. The study of a large number of minor writers of this period leads to the conclusion that in the seventeenth century the choice and treatment of subject matter seems to be more integrally related to religious conviction than is the case in later periods.
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2 Mostly from D.N.B. or Gillow's, J. Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics London, 1885–1902.Google Scholar
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12 William Alabaster (1567–1640) became a Catholic in 1596 and wrote a number of divine sonnets at the time. He reverted to Protestantism some years later.
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17 Grosart's edition of Sir John Beaumont's poems (Edinburgh, 1869) records the evidence for the pages being missing in nearly all extant copies; L. I. Guiney's research, as described in Newdigate's, B. H. article, ‘Sir John Beaumont's The Crowne of Thornes ’, in Review of English Studies 1942, vol. 18, p. 284 CrossRefGoogle Scholar supplies further information about his works.
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25 Among several collections of these writings perhaps the most relevant are The Manual (Douay, 1621), A Heavenly Treasure of Comfortable Mediations (St. Omer, 1624) and The Soliloquies (St. Omer, 1624), all translated by A. Batt.
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32 See note 17 above.
33 The Catholic writers who have not been named in the text include several (such as E. Benlowes, 1603–1676, and P. Carey, 1624–56) who probably later became Anglicans, and a number whose religious poetry forms an insignificant part of their works (such as William Davenant, 1606–68, who became a Catholic in later life). Elizabeth Cary Lady Falkland (1585–1639) was a Catholic for much of her life, and it is probable that Elizabeth Middleton (fl. 1637) was also a Catholic. Greer, Germaine et al., editors of Kissing the Rod: an Anthology of 17th Century Women's Verse (London: Virago, 1988)Google Scholar speculate that this may also be true of An Collins (fl. 1653) but Graham, E. et al., editors of Her Own Life: Autobiographical Writings by Seventeenth Century Englishwomen (London: Routledge, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar see evidence in her writing of Calvinist theological tenets. In all these cases, there seems little writing relevant to this paper.