Reviewed by:

• The Drama of Serial Conversion in Early Modern England by Holly Crawford Pickett
• Arthur F. Marotti (bio)

This study departs from the usual explanations of serial conversions as acts of opportunism, unreliable products of emotional experiences, or problematic public gestures meant to convince both authorities and general audiences of their authenticity. The author announces the aims of her study at the start: “I use the triad of conversion, theatricality, and natural philosophy to argue that multiple converts challenge and even change the scholarly view of early modern spirituality and do so in several critical ways” (17).

Chapter 1 deals with the serial convert Anthony Tyrrell, who used the literary forms to which other converts resorted to convince others of the sincerity of their religious change: the “motives” tract, the recantation sermon, and autobiographical account. The problem is that, although Tyrrell insisted on his own sincerity, he was viewed as a hypocrite. His most dramatic moment was when, in supposedly delivering a sermon recanting his Catholic beliefs, he attacked the established church and, when dragged from the pulpit, scattered copies of his sermon, which found its way into print. John Nichols, another serial convert, converted to Catholicism in 1577, but on his return from Rome was imprisoned before renouncing his Catholicism, serving the English government as an informer. The religiously indeterminate play, Nathaniel Woodes’s The Conflict of Conscience, based on the life of Francis Spiera, who renounced his Protestantism under papal pressure, “questions whether reconversion after apostacy is even possible” (42). It has two endings: in the first “the protagonist dies unrepentant” (45) and is a reprobate; in the second he becomes a triple convert. This play, Pickett suggests, “might have unsettled both authorities and readers alike” (50).

Chapter 2 concentrates on William Alabaster, the Protestant and Catholic uses of the example of St. Augustine, and the “motives” genre. Alabaster, the author claims, “reserves a place for the theatrical as well as the polemical, within the devotional” (52). She claims that both Augustine’s Confessions and Alabaster’s Conversion “narrate the act of reading in an uncommonly dramatic fashion, one that suggests an intimate connection among reading, performance, and conversion” (54). Like Augustine, who experienced a sudden conversion after reading an account of the life of St. Anthony, Alabaster had a surprising “flash of insight, the overwhelming sense of illumination and transformation” (77) while [End Page 391] he was reading a book, William Rainold’s defense of the Catholic translation of the New Testament. Whether this change was convincing to readers is debatable.

Chapter 3, on Elizabeth Cary and William Chillingworth (who is the villain in the biography of her by her daughter), deals with the question of sincerity in both authors. The first insisted on the truth of her experience, while the second followed the advice of St. Paul, who said he was “all things to all men” and accepted the necessity of dissimulation. In The Tragedy of Mariam, Cary, who for twenty years had periods of recusancy and conformity, rejected the charge of insincerity and, like her daughter, took “great pains to portray their protagonists as unwavering and unfeigned” (79). Alluding to the sociopolitical situation following the Gunpowder Plot and the Oath of Allegiance controversy, which caused many Catholics to practice “Nicodemism” in using occasional church attendance to protect themselves and prove their loyalty, Pickett connects the prejudice against women for being inconstant with the “changeability and duplicity” (82) of serial converts. Cary’s motto “Be and be seen” is meant to assert the authenticity of her religious commitment to Catholicism. In Caroline England, when there were many conversions to Catholicism, such as that of the Duke of Buckingham’s mother, it was important both for Cary and her daughter to assert the authenticity of religious conversion.

The interesting thing about Pickett’s treatment of Chillingworth is her perception of an “ecumenical potential” (100) in him, especially in his The Religion of Protestants, which accepts the need for accommodation and dissimulation. In “privileg[ing...

 审阅者：

• 
  霍莉·克劳福德·皮克特（Holly Crawford Pickett）的《早期现代英格兰的串行转换戏剧》
•  阿瑟·F·马洛蒂（简介）

这项研究与通常将连续皈依解释为机会主义行为、情感体验的不可靠产物或旨在让当局和普通观众相信其真实性的有问题的公共姿态不同。作者在一开始就宣布了她的研究目标：“我使用皈依、戏剧性和自然哲学的三位一体来论证多重皈依者挑战甚至改变了早期现代灵性的学术观点，并以几种关键的方式做到这一点”（ 17）。

第一章讲述的是连续皈依者安东尼·泰瑞尔，他使用其他皈依者所采用的文学形式来说服其他人相信他们的宗教变革的诚意：“动机”小册子、放弃宗教信仰的布道和自传记述。问题是，尽管泰瑞尔坚持自己的诚意，但他却被视为伪君子。他最戏剧性的时刻是，在一次据称放弃天主教信仰的布道中，他攻击了既定的教会，当他被从讲坛上拖下来时，他的布道副本散落一地，这些副本被印刷出来。另一位连续皈依者约翰·尼科尔斯 (John Nichols) 于 1577 年皈依天主教，但从罗马返回后被监禁，随后又放弃天主教信仰，以告密者的身份为英国政府服务。纳撒尼尔·伍兹 (Nathaniel Woodes) 的《良心冲突》(The Conflict of Conscience) 是一部宗教上不确定的戏剧，根据弗朗西斯·斯皮拉 (Francis Spiera) 的生活改编，他在教皇的压力下放弃了新教信仰，“质疑叛教后是否有可能重新皈依”(42)。它有两个结局：第一个“主人公死不悔改”（45），是一个恶棍；在第二次中，他成为了三重皈依者。皮克特表示，这部戏剧“可能让当局和读者都感到不安”（50）。

第二章集中讨论威廉·阿拉巴斯特、新教和天主教对圣奥古斯丁例子的运用，以及“动机”流派。作者声称，雪花石膏“在灵修中为戏剧和辩论保留了一席之地”（52）。她声称奥古斯丁的《忏悔录》和阿拉巴斯特的《皈依》都“以一种罕见的戏剧性方式叙述了阅读行为，这表明阅读、表演和皈依之间存在着密切的联系”（54）。就像奥古斯丁在读完圣安东尼生平的叙述后经历了突然的转变一样，阿拉巴斯特在阅读一本关于圣安东尼的生平的记述后，也有一种令人惊讶的“洞察力的闪现，一种压倒性的启发和转变的感觉”（77） 。书，威廉·雷诺德（William Rainold）对新约天主教翻译的辩护。这一变化是否能让读者信服，还有待商榷。

第三章，关于伊丽莎白·卡里和威廉·奇林沃斯（在她女儿的传记中是反派），讨论了两位作者的真诚问题。第一个坚持她的经历的真实性，而第二个则遵循圣保罗的建议，圣保罗说他“对所有人都是一切”并接受了掩饰的必要性。在《玛丽雅姆的悲剧》中，卡里在长达二十年的时间里一直犹豫不决和顺从，她拒绝接受不真诚的指控，并且像她的女儿一样，“煞费苦心地将主角描绘成坚定不移和不做作的”（79）。皮克特提到“火药阴谋”和“效忠宣誓”争议后的社会政治局势，导致许多天主教徒实行“尼科德主义”，利用偶尔去教堂来保护自己和证明自己的忠诚，皮克特将对妇女的偏见联系起来，因为她们不遵守“串行转换器的可变性和口是心非”（82）。卡里的座右铭是“被人看见”，旨在宣示她对天主教的宗教信仰的真实性。在加罗林英格兰，当有许多人皈依天主教时，例如白金汉公爵的母亲，对于卡里和她的女儿来说，断言宗教皈依的真实性非常重要。

皮克特对待奇林沃斯的有趣之处在于她对他身上的“普世潜力”（100）的看法，尤其是在他的《新教徒的宗教》中，它接受了迁就和掩饰的需要。在“特权[ing...