Interlude: The Annus Mirabilis of 1529

John Heywood ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 57-60
Author(s):  
Greg Walker

This short chapter identifies 1529 as a hugely significant year both for the fortunes of the More–Rastell family and for the political nation as a whole. Drawing together a range of sources, it charts the dramatic consequences of the fall of Henry VIII’s chief minister, Thomas, Cardinal Wolsey, and the sudden elevation of Thomas More to replace him as lord chancellor. It draws out the significance of these events for the More circle, arguing that they were the principal stimulus for Heywood’s remarkable turn to political drama in this period. Heywood’s career as a playwright would be fundamentally energized as a result of his kinsman’s elevation to the highest of political and legal offices.

Author(s):  
Doyeeta Majumder

This book examines the fraught relationship between the sixteenth-century formulations of the theories of sovereign violence, tyranny and usurpation and the manifestations of these ideas on the contemporary English stage. It will attempt to trace an evolution of the poetics of English and Scottish political drama through the early, middle, and late decades of the sixteenth-century in conjunction with developments in the political thought of the century, linking theatre and politics through the representations of the problematic figure of the usurper or, in Machiavellian terms, the ‘New Prince’. While the early Tudor morality plays are concerned with the legitimate monarch who becomes a tyrant, the later historical and tragic drama of the century foregrounds the figure of the illegitimate monarch who is a tyrant by default. On the one hand the sudden proliferation of usurpation plots in Elizabethan drama and the transition from the legitimate tyrant to the usurper tyrant is linked to the dramaturgical shift from the allegorical morality play tradition to later history plays and tragedies, and on the other it is reflective of a poetic turn in political thought which impelled political writers to conceive of the state and sovereignty as a product of human ‘poiesis’, independent of transcendental legitimization. The poetics of political drama and the emergence of the idea of ‘poiesis’ in the political context merge in the figure of the nuove principe: the prince without dynastic claims who creates his sovereignty by dint of his own ‘virtu’ and through an act of law-making violence.


2017 ◽  
pp. 88-95
Author(s):  
Paul I Trensky ◽  
William E. Harkins

2004 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcos Antônio Lopes

Morus não é o criador do pensamento político utópico, mas é o teórico que fez circular o ideal utópico, em sua corrente mais influente. Foi ele quem criou a palavra Utopia. Morus foi o primeiro a criticar a ordem social orientada pela exploração do trabalho e pela força do dinheiro. Ele é crítico da agricultura intensiva que leva à desestruturação das comunidades agrárias. Como Maquiavel, ele transita pela esfera do poder, uma esfera de ligações perigosas. De um modo diferente, ele tentou também separar a ética da política. Este artigo analisa estes aspectos de seu pensamento político. A history of the idea of utopia: reality and imagination in the political thought of Thomas More Abstract Morus is not the creator of the utopian political thought, but it is the theoretical that makes to circulate the utopian ideal, in its more important version. It went him who created to word Utopia. Morus was the first to criticize the social order guided by the exploration of the work and for force of the money. He is critical of the intensive agriculture that upside down the agrarian communities. As Maquiavel, he walk for the sphere of the power, a sphere of dangerous connections. In a different way, he also tried to separate the ethical of the politics. This article analysis these aspects of its political thought.


2005 ◽  
Vol 98 (4) ◽  
pp. 469-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constance M. Furey

The scathing insults that fill texts by sixteenth-century Christian reformers can shock even a jaded modern reader. In the prefatory letter to the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520), for example, Martin Luther begins by wishing for “grace and peace in Christ” before launching his attack on the “brainless and illiterate beast in papist form” and its “whole filthy pack of … asses,” and concludes by exhorting his reader to rise up against the Catholic hierarchy: “Continue courageously, noble sir; in this way the disgrace of the Bohemian name will be abolished, and the sludge of the harlot's lies and whoring shall again be taken up in her breast.” Or consider the nasty invectives by the English Lord Chancellor and future Catholic martyr, Thomas More, against not only Luther but also Matthew Tyndale, who translated the Bible into English. More calls these men the “devil's disciples”: Luther “a pimp, an apostate, a rustic, and a friar”; and Tyndale “a babbler, and a devil's ape.” Even Desiderius Erasmus, the erudite Catholic humanist, filled his writings with insults both satirical and blunt and proclaimed that theologians “are more stupid than any pig” (sue stupidiores). Fierce words commonly appear in the midst of religious controversies, and one may choose to skim past this hyperbolic outrage in search of the real message. Insulting rhetoric, however, does provide a sensitive barometer of religious concerns in the sixteenth century and yields unexpectedly complex answers to a simple question. What does negative speech accomplish?


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley Bye Kadam-Kiai ◽  
Dick Lembang Dugun

This paper narrates a political story of modern Sarawak from 1961 to 1974. The modern political history of Sarawak began with the conceptualisation and the formulation of the Federation Malaysia. The significant events that shaped and influenced the political history of modern Sarawak include: the British-Malayan Government meetings in November 1961 and July 1962; the setting up of the Cobbold Commission of Enquiry; the formulation of the Malaysia Solidarity and Consultative Committee (MSCC); the formation of the Inter-Governmental Committee (IGC); the signing the Malaysia Agreement of 1963; the controversies surrounding the making of the first Chief Minister and of the making of the first local State Governor; the cabinet crises of 1965 and 1966; the proclamation of the state of emergency in Sarawak in 1966 by the Federal Parliament which led to the removal of its first Chief Minister; and the establishment of the Sarawak Alliance and the Native Alliance. This historical account of the early history of modern Sarawak is not complete without the description of the ideas and the political struggles of Stephen Kalong Ningkan, the State’s first Chief Minister, and the issues affecting his political leadership


Imbizo ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Urther Rwafa ◽  
Washington Mushore ◽  
Ephraim Vhutuza

This paper explores the reconciliatory possibilities of the theatrical piece Rituals (2011) penned by Stephen Chifunyise and directed and produced by Daves Guzha. The Rituals’ theatrical piece memorialises as well as condemns a culture of violence demonstrated during the 2008 harmonised elections in Zimbabwe. Through “ritualized” performance, a community embarks on a metaphysical journey focused on exorcising the ghosts of political violence still haunting individuals, communities, politicians, and the nation as a whole. These day-to-day modes of healing and reconciliation, dramatised through Rituals, suggest that communities can create platforms for peace, cultivate tolerance and permit dialogue to prevail if victims are brought face-to-face with perpetrators of violence with the hope of ironing out political differences. It is going to be argued in this paper that although the political drama in Rituals, centralises politicians as major culprits that fomented violence, its failure to go beyond political meta-narratives constricts its capacity to explore the complexities of violence in Zimbabwe. These complexities are informed by factors such as lack of voter education, existence of age-old grudges, and fragmentation of community values, among others. Another critical strand to be explored in this article is one that interrogates Rituals’ potential to reach out to the wider audiences at grassroots levels, since the political drama in Rituals speaks to the “upper class” and intellectual circles, thereby foreclosing critical debate and “voices” that should emerge from “below” which are communi­ties many of whom were directly involved. By adopting a down-top methodological approach, the article seeks to place communities at the forefront in confronting questions of violence, peace-building and reconciliation in Zimbabwe.


2009 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 155-172
Author(s):  
Jasmine Farrier

The political drama of the 2008 re-election of Mitch McConnell was not his eventual fifth victory, which was predictable, but the fact that he won by only six percent of the vote. Senator McConnell spent over $20 million (including $2 million in final-stretch loans) to defend his seat against a self-financed businessman who spent $11 million and had never held an elected post. The fact that this race was the second most expensive in the country in 2008 suggests that the seat was in real danger for the first time in decades and McConnell knew it (see Jacobson 1980, 1985). His first two elections in 1984 and 1990 were very close, but as he ascended in statewide and national prominence his next two elections in 1996 and 2002 were landslides. While 2008 had special twists; this type of sudden vulnerability was not unique to Senator McConnell. In fact, this “bumpy-smooth-bumpy” electoral trajectory happens in many congressional careers. Paul Herrnson writes, “although incumbents generally derive tremendous advantages from the strategic environment, the political setting in a given year can pose obstacles for some, resulting in significant numbers losing their seats”(2004, 29).


1998 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-88
Author(s):  
Geoffry Holt

Fr Thomas More—the last descendant in the direct male line of St.Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England—died on 20 May 1795 in Bath. He had been the Jesuit provincial superior at the time of the suppression of the Society in 1773.Thomas More was the eldest of the five children of Thomas and Catherine (née Giffard) of Barnborough or Bamburg Hall in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Born on 19 September 1722, he was followed by Christopher, Bridget, Catherine and Mary. Both sons became Jesuits. Bridget married twice—Peter Metcalfe and Robert Dalton and had descendants; she died in 1797. Catherine died unmarried in 1786. Mary became Sister Mary Augustine of the Austin Canonesses at Bruges and died in 1807. Their home, Barnborough Hall, had been in the family since John, the only son of St. Thomas, had acquired it by his marriage to Anne Cresacre and it remained so until the nineteenth century.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 242-269
Author(s):  
Amy-Ruth Holt

Abstract Contributing to the growing literature on fandom, this study investigates the political fan imagery in Tamil Nadu of the past AIADMK chief-minister J. Jayalalitha (1948–2016) that arouse popular devotion in her followers as if she was a Hindu deity (Hills 2002; Porter 2009; Duffett 2013). During Jayalalitha’s reign, her AIADMK followers, often called bhaktas, pursued her favour by making divine-like icons of her as well as by performing extreme physical acts for her attention that may be reproduced as visual narratives in the local press. The Tamil karate star Shihan Hussaini crucified himself on a cross wearing a t-shirt with Jayalalitha’s political nickname on it, the MLA representative M.V. Karuppaiah floated in a swimming pool holding an AIADMK flag in his mouth for forty-eight hours, and minister Sellur Raju organized huge ritual processions derived from local traditions, repurposed for Jayalalitha’s praise. These bhakti images involve a transactional visuality between iconic depictions of Jayalalitha and supportive narratives featuring her devotees’ unusual actions that serve as defining symbols of their political participation.


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