Introduction

Abstract

The idea of the “recusant,” those Catholics who refused to attend the services of the established church between the Reformation and Catholic emancipation (1829), has had considerable pragmatic usefulness for historians working on the period. It has been critiqued in recent decades for lending itself to confessional bias and an unhelpfully legalistic definition of Catholicism. However, it remains valuable, not least when its broader implications are considered. In this special issue, historically focused essays consider the term’s chronological remit; the practice of coming to Protestant churches but refusing the Eucharist; how Catholic and puritan recusants compare; and how the notion of recusancy might apply to the Catholic experience in Ireland. Literary contributions to the volume assess oppositional stances in Catholic drama; the rhetorical figure of recusatio, as deployed by Robert Southwell (1561–95) and other post-Reformation Catholics; the literary phenomenon of Catholic parrhesia (speaking out); and imaginings of recusancy in literature between the late 19th and mid-20th centuries. The volume has been put together in honor of Arthur Marotti, a distinguished literary historian whose work on Catholics has itself occasioned a rethinking of the field.