Assimilating Anti-Catholic Attitudes in Renaissance Drama: Analysis of The White Devil and Dr Faustus Amelia Coen College

The English Renaissance notably developed alongside a volatile political backdrop intertwined with internal conflict, dynastic instability and, perhaps most importantly, religious tension. Religious settlement in the sixteenth and early seventeenth Centuries creates a complex composition of erratic continuity and change as the years 1580 to 1620 stand as the most important formative years of England’s religious identity, and thus Anti-Catholic polemic became a defining motif in literature of the period and particularly on the stage; as Anthony Milton states, “one of the most important findings of recent historians of early modern England has been the extraordinary prominence of Anti-Catholicism in that society.”[1]During this period, theatre was the only widespread public medium for commenting on religious, political and social issues, allowing drama to be particularly productive in the critiques it could convey and the outcomes that might incur as a result. Retrospectively, it is apparent that it is impossible to discuss a political or cultural history of the late-sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in which Anti-Catholicism does not play a significant role. However, although enacting life as re-enactment could not help...