Irony, Recusancy, and Repentance in Robert Southwell’s Saint Peter’s Complaint

Abstract

Robert Southwell’s Saint Peter’s Complaint has been studied chiefly for its alignment with Catholic or Protestant homiletics and devotional practices rather than its literary qualities. But Southwell’s aims were poetical as well as pastoral. His baroque portrayal of Saint Peter’s anguish over betraying Christ ironically incorporates both the ideology of Catholic recusancy, which Southwell supported as a Jesuit missionary, and the devotional discourse of the tears of repentance shared by Catholics and Protestants.