Abstract
Sir Thomas More transforms material from Foxe’s Acts and Monuments to offer through the character More a defense of poets, playwrights, and theatre. Foxe describes More as a poet, equating his writings with Catholicism and with lying. The authors of the play deviate from this source in presenting poets as tolerant and moral. Their More rejects the oppositional thinking that makes martyrdom possible and, therefore, is not a straightforward martyr figure as he goes to his death. Rather, he is a representative poet whose open-mindedness and empathy for all people serve as a defense of poetry and thus also of plays.
Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Subject
Law,Religious studies,History
Reference45 articles.
1. Tyndale, More, and the Anatomy of Heresy
2. John Foxe as Hagiographer: The Question Revisited
3. Bevington, David. Tudor Drama and Politics: A Critical Approach to Topical Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1968.
4. Cecil, William. 7he Execution ofjustice in England. Ed. Robert M. Kingdon. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1965.