Anticlerical Satire Research Articles

Światopogląd jako styl. „Klucze Piotrowe” Rogera Peyrefitte’a w przekładzie Hanny Szumańskiej-Grossowej jako ogniwo tradycji

The article’s starting point is the consideration of selected works of Anatole France’s, André Gide’s and Guillaume Apolinaire’s, which over a hundred years ago would constitute a separate trend in the French pre-Vatican church. What differentiates the criticism of what is known as ultramontanism from the traditional anticlerical satire is the tone of persiflage, irony and theological erudition of almost grotesque proportions. In the 1950s, Roger Peyrefitte, a diplomat and a satirist of the Vatican, was an outstanding heir to this stylistic and thematic tradition. When translating his The Keys of St. Peter in 1959, Hanna Szumańska-Grossowa had to refer to the aforementioned author, who had lived half a century earlier, and work out a narrative of her own based on the achievements of J. Sten (Anatole France), Tadeusz Żeleński-Boy (André Gide) and Adam Ważyk (GuillaumeApollinaire).

Appropriations of Gregorian Chant inFin-de-siècleFrench Opera:Couleur locale– Message-Opera – Allusion?

AbstractThis article compares three French operas from thefin de sièclewith regard to their appropriation of Gregorian chant, examining their different ideological and dramaturgical implications. In Alfred Bruneau’sLe rêve(1891), the use of plainchant, more or less in literal quotation and an accurate context, has often been interpreted as naturalistic. By treating sacred music as a world of its own, Bruneau refers to the French idea of Gregorian chant as ‘other’ music. In Vincent d’Indy’sL’étranger(1903), a quotation ofUbi caritasdoes not serve as an occasional illustration, but becomes essential as part of the leitmotif structure, thus functioning as the focal point of a religious message. Jules Massenet’sLe jongleur de Notre-Dame(1902) provides a third way of using music associated with history and Catholicism. In this collage of styles, plainchant is not quoted literally, but rather alluded to, offering in this ambiguity a mildly anti-clerical satire.

Voltaire, Storia dell'affermazione del cristianesimo (1776), a cura di Domenico Felice

Among the latest texts sended to the press by Voltaire, the Histoire de l’etablissement du Christianisme (1776) offers the reader the best possible synthesis of his thoughts on religion. Written in a style as clear and fast as it is dense and passionate, this short text traces all the themes that had fueled the reflection of the French philosopher for more than half a century: the humble origins of Christianity, the close ties of Jesus and his first disciples with the Jewish the importance of the role played by Paul of Tarsus in the elaboration of Christian doctrine, the compromises of the early Church with the Roman imperial power, up to the triumph under Constantine. But Voltaire, with his unparalleled talent for controversy, transforms this historical knowledge into a ferocious anticlerical satire; at the same time, he knows how to draw from his erudition a rich repertoire of arguments, historical figures, facts, to plead the cause of that natural called deism, which constituted the negation of every revealed religion and which it seemed to him, still in the late age (he was over eighty), the most reasonable religion, the only one capable of healing men from the disease of fanaticism and religious intolerance.

The politics of provocation: Charlie Hebdo , then and now

AbstractThis essay asks what has changed in the relationship between Charlie Hebdo and the French state. In its first incarnation as the May ’68-influenced Hara-Kiri Hebdo, the paper assailed all figures of authority and used a questionable “second-degree” humor in its treatment of the oppressed, notably women and immigrants. At this time, Charlie proved to be a thorn in the side of the French political and military elites and was prosecuted accordingly. Religion became a major target for Charlie in the late 1970s with the arrival of a new pope and the Iranian (Islamic) Revolution. When Charlie Hebdo resurfaced in the 1990s, it underwent a change in personnel and outlook, adhering more closely to a political line. Since 9/11, the paper has conducted a relentless critique of Islam and Islamism, citing French secular freedoms as defense. Analysis of Charlie’s anticlerical satire in differing historical, social, and political contexts highlights the ways in which the paper has shifted from establishment bugbear to champion of “Republican” values.RésuméCet essai se propose d’analyser l’évolution de la relation entre Charlie Hebdo et l’État français. Dans sa première incarnation post-Mai 68, période du titre Hara-Kiri Hebdo, les représentants de toutes les autorités sont mis sous les feux de la critique, le journal recourant à un humour “au second degré” parfois douteux dans son traitement des couches défavorisées, notamment les femmes et les immigrés. Charlie, à cette époque, joue un rôle de poil à gratter vis-à-vis des élites politiques et militaires françaises, et se trouve plusieurs fois poursuivi en justice. C’est seulement à la fin des années 1970 que la religion devient une cible majeure pour l’hebdomadaire au moment de l’élection d’un nouveau pape (1978) et de la Révolution (islamique) iranienne (1979). Quand il refait surface dans les années 1990, après avoir cessé de paraitre en 1981, Charlie s’est restructuré, et adhère plus étroitement à une ligne politique. A partir de 2001, le journal critique sans relâche l’islam et l’islamisme, en défendant notamment le principe de laïcité. L’évaluation de la satire anticléricale de Charlie dans ces différents contextes historiques, sociaux et politiques met en évidence la façon dont le journal, autrefois croquemitaine de l’establishment, est peu à peu devenu le champion des valeurs “républicaines.”

Religionssatirens fødsel ud af grådighedskritikkens ånd

Dennis Meyhoff Brink: “The Birth of Religious Satire”At the threshold of the twelfth century a seminal event occurred in European literature. For the first time in European history, satirical texts openly attacked the Christian Church exposing it as imbued with avarice, corruption, bribery, and greed for money. Satirical texts such as the Treatise of Garcia of Toledo, which describes how clerics worship the “martyrs’” Silver and Gold, and the so-called Money-Gospel in which the pope praises the bliss of wealth, gave birth to a new and distinctly anticlerical form of satire. Although this new anticlerical satire at first only constituted a small and anonymous underground movement, it was later continued and developed by satirists such as Erasmus, Molière, Swift, Diderot, Voltaire and Heine. In this way, anticlerical satire became a major tradition in modern European literature.The article first describes how the European tradition for anticlerical satire was born out of an increasingly skeptical attitude towards clerical cupidity and simony in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Secondly, it analyses the above mentioned satires by focusing on the grotesque differences between Christian ideals and clerical practice in the satires. Finally, it argues that this new anticlerical satire constituted a tradition of its own, which was fundamentally different from the carnivalistic tradition, made famous by Mikhail Bakhtin.

Evil, Sin, or Doubt? : The Dramas of Clerical Child Abuse

John Patrick Shanley’s popular “well-made play” Doubt: A Parable (2004) uses a conventional structure to provide an unconventional perspective on the question of child abuse in the Catholic Church. Staging the unresolved struggle of a possibly abusive, possibly gay, and certainly liberal priest against an impossibly dogmatic and conservative nun, it confounds the expectations of audiences prepared for straightforward anti-clerical satire. After establishing the cultural context of the scandals, wrestling with the problem of statistics, and laying out the contradictory ideological responses of liberal Catholics, feminists, anti-homophobic theorists, and clerical conservatives, this essay approaches Doubt through interwoven questions about genre and sexuality. It contrasts the play with Amy Berg’s documentary film Deliver Us from Evil (2006) and Michael Murphy’s verbatim drama Sin (A Cardinal Deposed) (2004), two texts that locate responsibility for the scandal primarily in the hierarchy and structure of the Catholic Church and reject the stereotypical association between child abuse and homosexuality. Despite the current vogue for cinematic documentary and documentary theatre, the essay argues that Doubt, the least factual of these three works, is also the most challenging: it permits the audience to imagine a positive relationship between a priest and a queer child. A fictional drama, with its absence of forensic evidence or victim testimony, freedom to embrace contradictions, and dynamically fluctuating engagement with different audiences, may be generically better suited than documentary to perform the ambiguities of this religious and sexual catastrophe.

SHEARING THE SHEPHERDS: VIOLENCE AND ANTICLERICAL SATIRE IN LANGLAND'S "PIERS PLOWMAN"

In her study of patristic influence on Piers Plowman, Margaret Goldsmith raises a suggestive point about its author's attitude towards the Church.1 She writes: 'We cannot doubt that William Langland was an angry man. One part of him would certainly like to take a stick to cheats, spongers and corrupters, and doubledealers of all kind - especially if they walk under the protection of a tonsure and a habit.'2 As this statement makes clear, Goldsmith sees a firm connection between Langland's anticlerical satire and corporeal violence. She sees in his text a clear desire to bruise, break, or otherwise damage the bodies of ecclesiastics, as they attract his hostility above any other target. Beneath his critiques, in other words, is a wish to inflict actual injury on priests, as Langland's denunciations seem to be underpinned by aggression, or even motivated by it.What makes this comment valuable is not that it is necessarily correct or well founded, but the fact that it articulates an assumption which echoes throughout Piers Plowman scholarship. The link Goldsmith posits between Langland's criticism of the clergy and aggression pervades commentary on the poem. Barbara Johnson, for instance, finds similar beliefs among the poem's early readers, noting that 'the Lollards and English reformers' saw Piers as a 'prophet ploughing for Christian truth by the violent action of attacking thorns and briars', while the idea that Langland 'lashed the vices of the clergy . . . with savage energy' attains the level of a cliche among nineteenth-century scholars.3 The same conviction appears in the work of more recent critics, as George Kane also sees Langland's satire as analogous to physical attack, stating that he 'was obliged to speak out . . . with loud violence' when addressing the priesthood.4 The connection Goldsmith describes is therefore a long-standing one in criticism. Langland's anticlerical remarks are often held to resemble violence, as assault seems to provide their underlying stimulus.The purpose of the present article is to interrogate this enduring assumption. Its main objective is to determine whether Langland's satire on the clergy is indeed supported by an implicit pattern of violence, or whether a different interplay is at work between his censure and his portrayal of wounding. However, it will also broaden this enquiry to consider what such an association can reveal about the poem as a whole, especially regarding Langland's position as a critic of the Church, and his understanding of the proper social function of the Church.One of the first points to note is the sheer importance of violence and anticlerical satire in Langland's vision. There can be little doubt that each of these issues occupies a fundamental place in his writing. Both leave a deep imprint on Langland's polemic position, his ethical schemata, and his rhetorical strategies alike. The presence of anticlerical satire in his work, for instance, has attracted attention throughout the history of the poem. As is well known, early modern readers treated such concerns as the dominant aspect of Piers, placing Langland's outbursts against 'the pride of the Romane Clergy' at the centre of the text.5 Thus Robert Crowley's 1550 edition directs the reader towards such 'principali poyntes' as 'what shameful Simony reigneth in the church' and 'Howe Wrath teacheth the Fryers', while John More, writing in 1593, regards the poem as wholly concerned with castigating the priesthood, placing it 'against shrift, Popes curse, Friers, sacrificing priestes, single lyfe, Cannon lawe, purgatorie'.6 Although modern criticism has tended to regard such a view as 'a gross renaissance distortion', and relocated the poem's 'deepest' or 'primary' meaning in its 'subtle spirituality' and 'religious function', the importance of satire in the poem remains undeniable.7 Langland draws from a wide range of traditions opposing or ridiculing particular orders within the Church: this is clear from Perm Szittya's study of his antifraternalism, and Jill Mann's analysis of his satire against monks, bishops, parsons, and nuns. …

Singing to the Silent Sentinel: 'Preiddeu Annwn' and the Oral Tradition

Scholars rarely offer readings of ‘Preiddeu Annwn’ (The Spoils of Annwn), a Middle Welsh Arthurian poem, because of its apparent obscurity. I would like to offer such a reading, placing the poem first in its historic context, the rivalry between native British and Continental priests in the early Middle Ages. With this background, it is possible to see the poem as a commentary on the value of oral narratives rather than the written word. The poem uses the legend of Arthur's voyage to Annwn, the Celtic Otherworld, as a vehicle for anticlerical satire. Very little relating to the ninth-century Welsh poem ‘Preiddeu Annwn’ is not problematic.2 In spite of the fact that it is one of the few extant specimens of Arthurian literature from the period between the supposed historical Arthur in the fifth century and the completion of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum Britanniae in 1138, very few commentators have considered the poem's artistic merits. Most treatments of the poem have noted its importance to the early development of the legend, and have attempted to expand on its allusions in order to recreate the story that it tells, but it was not until the early 1980s that work by Andrea Budgey, Marged Haycock, and Sarah Higley began to shed some light on the poem's significance and purpose.3 I would like to offer a close reading of ‘Preiddeu Annwn’ and suggest, in the light of research undertaken by John Miles Foley into both living and historic oral traditions, that it not only was originally an oral poem, recorded in writing by a lucky fluke of history, but that the poem is about orality itself, and the negative ramifications literacy might have upon storytelling and the dissemination of knowledge.

Daron Burrows, The Stereotype of the Priest in the Old French Fabliaux. Anticlerical Satire and Lay Identity

Article Daron Burrows, The Stereotype of the Priest in the Old French Fabliaux. Anticlerical Satire and Lay Identity was published on November 1, 2008 in the journal Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie (volume 124, issue 4).

The Stereotype of the Priest in the Old French Fabliaux. Anticlerical Satire and Lay Identity

The Stereotype of the Priest in the Old French Fabliaux. Anticlerical Satire and Lay Identity

Savonarola in Munich: A Reappraisal of Thomas Mann's Fiorenza

Although Mann's only play, Fiorenza, was badly received by theatre audiences, this paper argues that it has considerable interest as an indirect testimony to Mann's ambivalence about cultural life in Munich, and about aesthetic and political commitment. The libertinism of the Schwabing Bohemians, and the clerically inspired censorship practised by the Munich authorities, are shown to lie behind the contrasting portrayals of Lorenzo de' Medici and Savonarola, the representatives respectively of ‘Leben’ and ‘Geist’. Comparisons are made with anticlerical satire by the Munich authors Wedekind and Panizza. Finally Mann's Savonarola is analysed as a perceptive illustration of the combination of moral authority and self-destructive obsession that accompany commitment to a cause.

Lucian'sSaturnalia, the Land of Cockaigne, and the Mummers' Plays

THROUGHOUT Europe, from medieval times to the present, there have existed legends of a peasants' paradise where houses are made out of pastries, food falls from the sky right into one's mouth, and no one needs to work for a living-in fact, the inhabitants are paid to sleep. In Germany, this land is known as Schlaraffenland, in Holland as Luilekkerland, in England as Lubberland, in Italy as Cuccagna, in Spain as Cucafia, and in France as Cocagne; from the latter comes the general name of this paradise which I shall use in this paper, the Land of Cockaigne.' Examples of English references to the myth may be found in written sources of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance as well as in oral tradition. The first record appears in an early fourteenth-century anticlerical satire, The Land of Cockaygne (c. 1305), which exploits some typical motifs for its own purposes:

Lazarillo de Tormes: Erasmian Satire or Protestant Reform?

THE AUTHOR of Lazarillo de Tormes sought to please and instruct; most readers would acknowledge his success as an entertainer and if they were also critics, would probably differ as to his precise purpose while assigning him a general didactic intent. The disagreement about the specific intent of Lazarillo is as noticeable as its pervasive satire. Marcel Bataillon maintained that Lazarillo was not the labor of an Erasmian and that its satire contains nothing that had not been present in the anticlerical satire of the Middle Ages, nor does the novel present a positive doctrine of the Spirit, an essential element of Erasmian writing.' A. A. Parker justly observed that given the autobiographical form, it would have been difficult for Lazarillo to preach any such doctrine.2 Americo Castro baldly asserted that en el Lazarillo lo de menos es la critica y la doctrina.3 Contradictory assertions and assurances have never discouraged critics from looking for a religious message in Lazarillo and Manuel Asensio, employing Bataillon's criteria, makes a reasonable case for an Erasmian humanist as author and proposes Juan de Vald6s as his candidate, a candidacy rejected by Bataillon. Joseph Ricapito has recently published a valuable survey of Lazarillo scholarship to date, a study which offers the specialist a synoptic view of the many authorship theories. In an earlier work Ricapito urged the candidacy of Alfonso de Vald6s.4 No doubt there will be further scrutiny of both the authorship and the intention of Lazarillo. The present article proposes to offer a few observations on the doctrinal content of Lazarillo that might aid in narrowing the years of its composition and the field of author candidates.

The mediaeval controversy concerning burial privileges: an aspect of anticlerical satire in the "Libro de buen amor"

While offering the poet advice on the strategy appropriate to the successful wooing of a lady, Don Amor comments upon the useful role that money may play in such an undertaking (stanza 489). This leads him to a general consideration of the all-pervasive influence and power of money (stanzas 490 ss.), which, as Lecoy has shown, has several parallels in the poetry of mediaeval Europe.