POWER AND VIRTUE IN ELKANAH SETTLE’S IBRAHIM
Throughout the Medieval and Renaissance periods, British literary works concerned with the Orient served to underpin negative opinions about the people, and particularly the rulers, of the region. One might have expected the significant social, political and religious changes that were brought about by the Civil Wars and the Enlightenment to have altered that trend. However, uncomplimentary aspects of Middle Eastern life, as it was understood by Western writers, continued to circulate during the Restoration and eighteenth century. One writer stands out among the playwrights and authors of the period. In contrast to his contemporaries, Elkanah Settle extends the impact of the prevailing positive atmosphere beyond the shores of Britain and projects it into the Orient. In his play Ibrahim, Settle presents an Oriental ruler who shows true merit in his character, rather than the usual despotic and dictatorial traits adhered to in other plays of the genre. The ruler, Solyman, possesses a level of virtue which makes his family members and his subjects alike admire him and even allows them to criticize, and even rebuke him, when he deviates from the path of honor and virtue. Solyman has wisdom enough to seek advice, accept criticism, admit his weakness and try to redress the injuries he has caused to others by his recklessness. These are rare abilities among the rulers portrayed in Oriental plays of the period. The aim of this article is, therefore, to affirm how Settle, as a writer of a particular genre at a particular point in history, differs greatly from his contemporaries, apparently showing a much more positive face to life in the Orient
Masks and Faces: Female Legibility in the Restoration Era
Thus while he spake, each passion dimm’d his face, Thrice chang’d with pale, ire, envy and despair, Which marr’d his borrow’d visage, and betray’d Him counterfeit, if any eye beheld. For heav’nly minds from such distempers foul Are ever clear. Whereof hee soon aware, Each perturbation smooth’d with outward calm, Artificer of fraud; and was the first That practis’d falsehood under saintly show. Milton, Paradise Lost, 4:114–22
Italian Influence on the Development of Calvinist Scholasticism
THIS ARTICLE TRIES to show that the rise of Calvinist scholasticism, which was the most important development in Calvinist theology during the second half of the sixteenth century, stemmed largely from several converging Italian influences, particularly from the writings of Peter Martyr Vermigli and Jerome Zanchi. Here Calvinist theology refers not only to the personal thought of John Calvin but also to the teachings of the founders of the Reformed or Calvinist tradition as it spread out from Geneva and Switzerland to France, Germany, England, Scotland, Poland, and the Low Countries. In this context Calvin emerges as the brightest star in a galaxy of Reformed theologians which includes Heinrich Bullinger, Pierre Viret, Theodore Beza and Wolfgang Musculus as well as Martyr, Zanchi and others. These theologians were often more influential than Calvin himself at a given place or time or on a given point of doctrine. Bullinger, Martyr, and Martin Bucer were all more important for spreading Calvinist ideas to Edwardian England than was John Calvin. Early Elizabethan Protestantism looked more to Zurich than to Geneva, as did early Polish Calvinism. German Calvinism owed more to Heidelberg than to Geneva.' These leaders developed their theologies sometimes in mutual dependence, sometimes with surprising independence. By no means was their relation to Calvin simply that of disciple to master, for each gave a personal nuance to his style of Calvinism. Thus the sixteenth century Jesuit Cornelius Schulting states on the opening page of his five volume polemic against Calvin and Peter Martyr that Martyr was clearer and far more learned than Calvin.2 Recently John Bray has pointed out that research in seventeenth century Calvinism leads "to the conclusion that the impact of Calvin upon the Calvinistic movement has been greatly over-rated. It may well be that some of