Jan Bloemendal and Nigel Smith, Eds.: Politics and Aesthetics in European Baroque and Classicist Tragedy. Leiden: Brill

Book Reviews 139
Jan Bloemendal and Nigel Smith, eds.

Politics and Aesthetics in European Baroque and Classicist Tragedy. Leiden: Brill,
2017. Pp. vii + 442. Hb, $215.
Only three out of the fourteen essays in this volume directly concern Jesuit
drama. Yet, the Jesuit presence is felt in many of the other chapters as well, suf-
fusing the volume with both the context of the period in which Jesuit drama
formed a major presence on European stages and the larger shaping influence
of the Jesuits emerging from the volume as a whole.
During the early-modern era, classical drama found new manifestations in
the form of both neoclassical and baroque dramas. The introduction by volume
editors Bloemendal and Smith notes that neo-Latin tragedy “found a ready au-
dience in universities and, after 1553, in the Jesuit gymnasia and academies” (5).
The Jesuits contributed to a “democraticization of culture” by educating all
classes, and especially by welcoming the poor to Jesuit schools (25). As a result,
Jesuit drama was not a court drama or elite drama but a theatre for all.
Of further importance, “It was the Jesuits who explored the possibility of
acting out martyrdom to the full, including the martyrdom of princes and
kings” (5). Indeed, one of the debates of the period concerned whether or
not Christian tragedy, especially concerning martyrdom, was even possible.
Several of the essays in the volume touch upon the debate and the Jesuits’
answer, which was always in the affirmative. Martyrdom forms a major theme
in Jesuit drama, and the volume explains both the reasons why and the execu-
tion thereof.
The first essay to directly address Jesuit drama is Howard B. Norland’s
“Political Martyrdom at the English College in Rome,” which examines three
plays that concern recent English political martyrs. Thomas Morus (1612) offers
a dramatization of the death of Thomas More, Thomas Cantuariensis (1613)
presents the martyrdom of Thomas Beckett, and Roffensis (1617–18) concerns
John Fisher, bishop of Rodchester, also martyred, like More, by Henry viii. All
three plays were written anonymously, to be performed at Carnival, and “all
three are strong indictments of the power of the monarch” (150). Henry viii
is presented in two of the plays as an evil, brutal tyrant, allowing the Jesuits
to criticize England at a distance, both spatially and temporally. Norland,
however, also notes that the plays actually reflect (then) current concerns for
Catholics in the United Kingdom, and the martyrs themselves provide models
for virtue, courage and sacrifice for English Catholics living in Rome.
Interestingly, Norland also compares Thomas Morus (1612) with Thomas
More (c.1596–1600), the early seventeenth-century play written by William
Shakespeare, Anthony Munday, Henry Chettle, Thomas Heywood, and Thomas
journal of jesuit studies 5 (2018) 129-200

140 Book Reviews
Dekker, noting the latter must walk a very careful line of celebrating More as a
tragic figure while avoiding overt criticism of the monarch who martyred him.
The Jesuit play need walk no such line, criticizing the use of state power to
crush Catholic priests.
For an example of an essay not directly analyzing Jesuit drama, yet display-
ing a strong Jesuit presence, is James A. Parentis, Jr’s chapter on Dutch play-
wright Nicolas Vernulaeus and the end of Christian humanism. Vernulaeus
adapted works from French and Italian Jesuits into Dutch, most notably Ber-
nardo Stefonio’s Crispus (1597) and Hermenegildus (1656) by French Jesuit
Nicolas Caussin. Whereas the Jesuits focused on the religious and theological
content, Vernulaeus used the material to critique the political milieu of the
Netherlands. Similarly, Sarah Knight’s essay on Latin tragedy and education in
early modern England sees English Latin drama written in response to Jesuit
influence. She also discusses Edwards Campion’s orations as performance and
sees Campion’s sole full-length play Ambrosia (1578) as embodying his peda-
gogical theories.
Crispus also features in Blair Hoxby’s “The Baroque Tragedy of the Roman
Jesuits: Flavia and Beyond,” although the eponymous play is obviously the fo-
cus. Hoxby offers a close reading of Flavia (1600), concerning “the martyrdom
of three members of the imperial family during the reign of Domitian” (182).
Flavia was restaged several times and found new life as a published script as
well. Hoxby considers the play as “sacred metaphor,” defending the doctrine of
transubstantiation against Protestants, as “baroque drama,” seeing the formal
baroque in the structure of the play, and as a tragedy of “tyranny and martyr-
dom” (205). Hoxby explores the debate over whether or not a martyr can be a
tragic hero, noting “Flavia asks us to see the passion of Christ as a tragedy, to
identify the essence of tragedy with pathos, and to interpret the meaning of
sacrifice and solemn commemoration through the joint example of the cruci-
fixion and the Eucharist” (216), which represents a very different understand-
ing of tragedy from the baroque and classicist schools.
Lastly, in chapter thirteen, Nienke Tjoelker’s “French Classicism in Jesuit
Theatre Poetics of the Eighteenth Century” argues that a shift occurs in Je-
suits schools in German-speaking areas of Europe in the eighteenth century.
Jesuits attempted to save school drama by reforming it in keeping with educa-
tional reforms, especially in Maria Theresa’s Austria. Neo-Latin Jesuit drama
was slowly changed into a new form of drama following the model of French
classicism, revealing both “gallophobia” and “gallophilia” an ambivalence to-
wards the French origins of the aesthetics but a recognition that under edu-
cational reform policy, the latter was a “much better fit” (396). In particular,
the Jesuits changed in order to further the connections between “education,

Book Reviews 141
the art of theatre, and creating good citizens,” the latter in addition to creating
good Catholics (393). Interestingly, Pierre Corneille, himself Jesuit-educated,
served as the strongest model. Tjoelker finds subtle and nuanced connections
between the politics, aesthetics and pedagogy of the period.
The three Jesuit-specific essays I have highlighted here mark a welcome
addition to the growing body of scholarly literature on early modern Jesuit
drama. All three strongly theorize and contextualize Jesuit plays of their
respective times, places and politics. Yet many of the other essays, as noted
above, while not taking Jesuit drama as the subject of analysis, nevertheless
touch upon it in valuable and interesting ways and remind the reader that we
take Jesuit drama out of its context(s) at our peril. These plays were produced
under specific circumstances and for specific purposes – grouping them to-
gether simply because they were “Jesuit” does a disservice to the larger picture
of Jesuit interactions in situ. This volume is a worthy supplement to the other
work happening in the field and gives the reader ideas for how else we might
consider Jesuit drama in larger contexts outside of Jesuit Studies.
Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr.

Loyola Marymount University
Kevin.Wetmore@lmu.edu
doi 10.1163/22141332-00501008-04

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Book Reviews 139

Jan Bloemendal and Nigel Smith, eds.

journal of jesuit studies 5 (2018) 129-200

journal of jesuit studies 5 (2018) 129-200

Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr.

journal of jesuit studies 5 (2018) 129-200

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