"The Woman" (1540) - An Anatomical Fugitive Sheet: A Modern Edition and Introductory Essay.

Please note, it will be difficult to understand this essay without referring to the image and surrounding text which I am unable to reproduce  here. It belongs to The Wellcome Institute  but it can be seen at their site here.  A video showing the flaps being lifted in stages, is available here. 

On the Cusp of Change - Anxiety and Ambivalence, Empiricism and Protestantism in Raynalde's 'The Woman' (1540.)

     ‘The Woman’ thought to have been published by Thomas Raynald(e) in 1540, is the earliest surviving, English fugitive sheet. ^[1]  It depicts and describes a Galenic understanding of the female reproductive system. These types of broadside, distinguished by three to seven layers of flaps representing the internal organs with surrounding text providing their names and descriptions of their supposed functions,  first appeared in Germany in 1538. The image itself is first seen in Nuremberg engraved by Cornelis Bos and printed by Hans Guldenmundt in 1538 or 9.^[2] It is very likely that Raynald collaborated with Thomas Geminus whose interest in fugitive sheets  has been well established (Carlino 1999. p67) and whose similar work appears in 'Compendiosa Totius Anatomiae Delineatio'  (1545) containing  images which also appear in Raynald’s  edition of the  translation of  E. Rueslin’s The Byrth of  Mankynde  (1545),  the first English language obstetric work .^[3][4] Strangely, ‘The Woman’ has received very little critical attention. This study intends to situate it within its genre and within shifting discourses around anatomy. It will argue for its importance in its own right as a text which reveals anxiety and ambivalence about new and radical changes in English attitudes towards medicine and the body.  Specifically, it addresses the approaching shift of priorities from scholasticism to empiricism and from Catholic to Lutheran ideas of anatomy.

    ‘Fugitive papers,’ (a direct translation of the German fliegende Blatter) have been neglected by scholars historically. They received little scholarly interest until the 1920s when Le Roy Crummer began cataloguing them. Another long pause ensued before Andrea Carlino created his catalogue Paper Bodies: A Catalogue of Anatomical Fugitive Sheets 1538-1687 in 1999 arguing that they be recognised as a genre, “distinctive in their iconographical structure and typographical form, which remained unchanged for decades despite the refinement in representational techniques and the progress of anatomy during the course of the sixteenth century” (p 105.) The vernacular text too, he argues, constitutes a ‘genre that stands apart from the development of scientific research and remains within the pre-vesalian scientific tradition” (p105.) They have, therefore, been regarded as marginal to the history of medicine and of little value, artistically.  Riffkin et al in their study of depictions of human anatomy dismiss them in a few sentences saying “almost all are dreadful as anatomy and crude as art” (2011. p25.) They go on to say “They were intended for popular amusement or for the walls of barber-surgeons, pharmacies and midwives rooms” (p25.) This association of fugitive papers with ‘low culture’ or the lowest status medical practitioners is consistent with their genre, the broadside.  In The Other Print Tradition (1995), Cathy Preston discusses the extent to which privileged discourses have marginalised broadsides and chapbooks perceiving them as ‘sites and sources of social and cultural contamination, disintegration and decay’ (p77) in their own time and as of little worth even today. The aim of the study she conducts with Michael Preston is to show that these cheap publications constitute a wealth of sources which reveal social and cultural interests of lower status groups but also those which span all classes.  I would suggest that medical broadsides are an important example of texts with just such a wide audience.  

     Andrea Carlino too focuses on the cultural and social value of these texts but does not see ‘The Woman’ as interesting in this way, describing it as ‘limited to the names of the parts indicated on the figure with letters” and going on to group it with other vernacular texts which contain ‘sparse information,’ are ‘unaffected by change ‘and ‘seem stuck in a complacent conservatism’ (p106.) Many scholars have dismissed vernacular fugitive sheets as purely commercial ventures that made little effort to update their contents in accordance with the advances in anatomical knowledge for which the sixteenth century is distinguished. An argument of this kind could be made for two broadsheets published in London in 1559 and 1599^[5] which reproduce the first three quarters of the text of The Woman almost unchanged and add a nine point description of female anatomy. ^[6] These have been retitled ‘The Anatomie of the Inward Parts of Woman, Very Necessary to be Knowne to Physitians, Surgians and all Other that Desire to Know Themselves.’ Such references , Carlino tells us “to a non-specialised public could be seen as the vulgar promotional rhetoric of printmakers and printsellers eager not to limit their range of customers to any specific socio-professional group” (p110.)   However, the first known publication of The Woman with its moral conclusion and choice of image is, I would argue, far more interesting and addresses developments in anatomy which would make themselves more fully felt in the coming decades. It is rich in just those social and cultural details for which broadsheets are valuable, revealing the shifts in which empirical observation began to be prioritised over textual authority and Lutheran approaches to anatomy gained influence.

    The conflict between a textually-based, university-centred, medical writing in Latin and practical guilds of trained barbers, surgeons and apothecaries who wrote remedies and advice in the vernacular (when they wrote at all) was not new in 1540. Claire Jones explores these distinct ‘discourse communities’ and cites an argument for the superiority of the latter from 15^th century Harley MS 1736 f. 9r-v

“Techynge of bokys, yf at all yt be profytabyll, yet yt ys not allynges so sufficient as ys the othyr maner of anathomie, for the partes of the membyrs may better be sene with eyne in ded than in letters wretyne onn the boke”(in Taavitsainen and Pahta.  2004. p27.)  

      An increasing desire to ‘see’ the internal organs of the body rather than simply read descriptions of them resulted in an increase in dissections which were opened to larger numbers of people. Detailed drawings of dissected bodies were made and, with the advent of printing, circulated to an even larger audience during the sixteenth century. Fugitive sheets with their individuated flaps mimicking dissection and their suitability fulfilled this desire for visual representation, albeit with varying degrees of accuracy, at a low price.  However, the dominance of the universities and their reliance upon verbal description which drew on ancient philosophy and, particularly, Galen could not be overturned easily. It required the scholar, Vesalius, to make what is credited as the first effective criticism of reliance on textual authority and promotion of empiricism in his 1543 book De Humani Corporis Fabrica. Carlino argues that his great achievement was “an inversion of the order of priorities between text and dissection, reading and direct observation (p7.) The eye and empirical evidence was to become more central to anatomy than the word and ancient authority. 

     We see, in ‘The Woman’ a tension between ‘what is seen’ and ‘what is written,’ a rejection of some ancient wisdom, a foregrounding of the visual and a mixture of discourses. The writer begins by remitting his reader to the male sheet (since lost) to ‘beholde’ the operation of organs common to both sexes, immediately privileging the image and asserting its authority.  He describes several organs, giving a particularly detailed description of the uterus including what appears to be a fairly accurate description of the endometrium, “a certayn thycke carnosyte, which boweth downwarde” before adding   “Some there be þat wryte that there shulde be many selles or distinctions in the Matrice, the which is not true: for other distinction is there none.”  This ‘writing’ is rejected because it does not accord with what can be seen in the image. Irma Taavitsainen, in her study of the language of different categories of medical writing, describes the addition of any form of commentary upon medical claims as ‘at the heart of the intellectual mainstream of scholasticism” (2004 p40) but, here, it is used here to prioritise empirical observation over that very textual authority.

    However, at other times, ‘The Woman’ presents the writings of ‘the phylosophers’ seemingly uncritically. The idea that males were gestated on the right and females on the left is repeated without any indication of doubt although he ensures the reader knows that this is said and not seen by his use of ‘they wryte’ and ‘they bid.’ Equally the description of the tightly closed cervix of the pregnant uterus is ‘accordyng to the doctors and of physicke and phylosophers.’ This citing of authority is almost certainly to affirm veracity but it is very different to his description of positions and measurements of organs which requires no such authority but just ‘are.’ The impression is that these have been seen and copied and require no further authority. The evidence is presented to be seen by all.

     However, not all of ‘The Woman’s’ information is available to all because parts of it are written in (rather faulty) Latin and thereby removed from the understanding of most of the medical practitioners outside the universities.  In an early feminist study on the discourse of reproduction, Eve Keller notes that writers demurred particularly about translating into English the “secrets of the female generative parts” (1960 p51.)  Keller cites Raynald’s anxiety, when producing The Byrth of Mankinde, that such sensitive information would be available to ‘every boy and knave’ (p82.) Such concerns about restricting access to certain knowledge to the scholars could certainly be considered conservative.

     This becomes particularly interesting when considered in relation to the emerging Lutheran approach to anatomy which held knowledge of it to be of great moral value and facilitated the spread of anatomical drawings.  Valerie Nutton urges us to look at changes in attitude to anatomy not only in terms of the supercedence of Galen by Vasalius but ‘as part of a broader movement for the understanding of man’s place in God’s creation” (1993 p11.)

      ‘The Woman’ considers the religious implications of the study of anatomy, concluding with the passage, “To honest and virtuous people, everything is occasion and mater whereby they may glorifie and prayse God. The wicked and ungodly, contrariwyse in all thinges, seake to augment theyr leudness and devilysh lust.”  This notion of glorifying God through appreciation and knowledge of the anatomy of man is most often associated with Lutheranism but is found in both Catholic and Protestant writing having entered Christianity via Augustinian semiology and meditations upon the requirement of the Delphic Maxim to ‘know thyself.’^[7] However, Catholic England’s attitude towards dissection and anatomical depictions was complex and mixed with powerful social taboos. Krishan Thadani’s 2012 study refuting the myth that the Catholic Church ever banned dissection discusses the combination of late medieval papal bulls and social factors which led people to consider dissection and the study of anatomy to be somewhat indecent and unchristian. It is Vivian Nutton who most clearly shows in her influential essay ‘Wittenberg Anatomy’ that at Wittenberg ‘the links [between anatomy and glorifying the handiwork of God] were much tighter’ (1993 p12.) Carlino too describes a ‘Protestant redefinition’ of nosce teipsum (know yourself) and cites Melanchthon’s rationale,

 ““It is especially appropriate and profitable for us ourselves to see the whole series, shapes, layout, powers and function of each of the parts… (T)rue wisdom is the recognition of God and the consideration of Nature, one must admit that one must learn anatomy whereby the causes of many actions and changes are made visible” (1550. Quoted in Kusakawa  The Transformation, p105, n.135)”(p11.)

     Lutheran theology stressed the connectedness of body & soul and believed that understanding the body had important moral benefits. For this reason, not only doctors but all Christian scholars were to study anatomy. Fugitive sheets were produced for this purpose in Wittenberg by 1560 and made widely available to people of all social status. At the same time as the bible was being made available to all literate Christians, anatomy also became more accessible. However, accuracy was less important than drawing the right religious connections (Nutton p17.)  Among the first printers to produce strongly Protestant works after the succession of Edward VI was (probably the younger) Thomas Raynald.

     The positive attitude towards anatomy found in ‘The Woman’ combined with its strong defense against possible criticisms on religious grounds mirrors a climate in which an ill-defined perception of anatomy as salacious and unchristian were beginning to give way to an emerging Protestant desire to ‘know thyself.’ It is significant that later editions of this text, when Protestantism was more securely established, were addressed to ‘all those who wish to know themselves.” 

     In the 1540 edition, however, religious defensiveness and anxiety could almost be argued to overshadow the positive Christian message of the conclusion. We see this ambivalence in the image chosen. Avoiding those with erotic poses or splayed, frog-like postures so commonly seen at this time, Raynald’s model is Cornelis Bos’ Eve with her knees pressed primly together. Unlike the earlier Bos, in which Eve’s waist, breasts and stomach are clearly defined, Raynald’s Eve is covered by a top flap that appears rather like a high necked apron, descending straight down shapelessly to her knees obscuring her body. The contours of her breasts and abdomen are shaded in faintly reflecting the writer’s wish to discourage salacious interest.  In the earlier Bos image, Eve’s genitals are casually covered by what looks like a flower. This could be Eve before the fall. In the Raynald edition, it is clearly a fig leaf. Eve is depicted after her fall for the sin of seeking forbidden knowledge. To uncover the internal organs, the reader must first remove the symbolically loaded fig leaf and be led to ask himself what kind of knowledge he is seeking, having been presented with two dichotomous options in the accompanying text! The earlier unseemly and unchristian connotations of anatomy are clearly still of great concern.

     I would argue that ‘The Woman’ far from being complacent in its conservatism, reveals an awareness of and an anxiety and ambivalence about important intellectual and religious changes of its time. It emphasises the precedence of empirical anatomy over scholastic knowledge at one time whilst deferring to the latter at others and restricting some of its contents to educated men.  It claims a positive religious benefit to anatomy in keeping with emerging Lutheran ideas whilst betraying older Catholic & social concerns that such studies might be indecent, unchristian and forbidden. As the earliest English fugitive sheet published at the beginning of the decade which would see a revolution in anatomy and the establishment of Protestantism under Edward VI,  it is a valuable record of impending social and cultural change.

*******************

The Woman

Textual Note

        (This semi-diplomatic transcription is of the 1540 text (referred to as ‘Text A,’) wherever the text is complete. The missing text in the first column has been supplied from the 1559 (Text B) and 1599 (Text C) editions and the supplied text signified with square brackets. Attempts have been made to use Text A’s preferred spelling. The final passage is not found in any later edition and I have not attempted to supply the missing words. A suggestion of the general meaning has been made in the footnotes. The differences in the three texts have been collated and the alternative ending to Texts B and C can be found in appendix 3.) 

The signification of such letters, as are grauen in this figure.

For so muche as the declaration of most of the principal partes is sufficientlye set forth in the anatomy of man, ^[8] therefore wyll I remyt you thether ^[9]there to beholde the operation of them, and here we wyll declare the situation and maner of suche partes as are in woman different from the partes in man, how be it,  first ye shall understand the significacion of the letters which are grauen with in thys figure.

A)     Signifyeth^[10] the gully of the throte

B)      The Lunges

C)      The harte

D)     The myddrefe^[11]

E)      The inner parte of the throte pype, passing through the bolke^[12] and the lunges into the stomacke.

F)      Sygnifyeth the mouth of the stomacke.

G)     The stomacke

H)     Signifyeth the botome of the stomacke.

I)        The nethermouth of the stomacke

K)      The lyuer. Nexte unto thys letter .K. you se this letter V  þe which shulde be .L. and it signifieth the gaule. ^[13]

M)   Vena porta, the lyuer vayne.

N)     The splene

O)     Sygnyfyeth the place and vessel to the whych the flowerres^[14] be deriuyed  from the liuer. Non^[15] menses in primis sensum erumpunt ab ipso iccinore, uelut per quedam interuella, donec peruentum sit ab illa (cuper^[16] primum ceruicis pudende^[17] exortum) acetabula quos hec, quasi hihanti^[18]et aperto ore effundunt ^[19]

P. Signyfyeth the kidneys. In Latine, Renes.

[Q. The bladder, in Latine Velcica: this bladder receiueth the waterie parts &]urine [which descend]eth from [the reynes] and it lyeth [in the lower] part of the [bellie before] the wombe [or matri]ce^[20] of the woman, [whose] necke entreth in [at, and] is fastened to the[ nec]ke of the wombe though^[21] the which natu[r]ally it sendeth forth the [uri]ne.

R. Signifieth þe great [vay]ne, whyche is dery[ued] out of the liuer, cal[led] in Laten parigibba, & [Chilis: Co]ncaua venarum [mater, the] mother of all [vaynes, and] from whom [and through] his bruan[ches(other] smaller vay[nes) bloud] is conueyed [into all] parts of mans [body.]

[S.]T.V.X Signifi[eth t]he wombe where[in m]ankynd is conceiued, nouryshed and fostred, unto the time it be of a certayn myght & force, and than^[22] naturally is sent & brought forth into the world: and it is called in laten Matrix: before it, is the bladder:^[23] but it is somewhat hyer then the bladder: the bottome of it extendeth it selfe unto the nauel.

S. ^[24]The botome of the wombe, where is a certayn thycke carnosyte,^[25] which boweth downwarde, and causeth a distinction to be in the wombe, wherefore T. signifieth the right syde of the Matrice V. the left syde. Some there be Þat [wry]te, that there shulde [be] many selles or disti[nctions] in the Matrice, the [whyc]he is not true: for [other d]isctinction than the [fleshie] parte whych is [signify]ed by S,) dothe [cause,  is] there none. In the ry[ght] syde, as philsophers wryte, lyeth alwaye the man chylde, in the lefte the woman chylde.^[26] And to knowe whether the concepcion be male or female, they bid to marke whether it moue more on the right syde then the left, for than it is a man, if on the lefte more, then on the ryght syde, then it is a woman: and for Þat cause also is to be noted the two brestes, the ryght & the lefte: if the ryght be greater or^[27] harder then the left, it is a token of a man: if the lefte, of a woman, and if she haue more payne and dolour in the ryght syde, lykewyse it sygnyfyeth the man chyld, if in the left, a woman. Whether it be man or woman accordyng to the doctours of physicke and phylosophers, when the seade is fyrste conceyued in the matrix, it encloseth it selfe after such a sorte, that the poynte of a needle cannot entre in at it but by violence. And the fyrst syxe dayes that it is conceyued, it remaineth crude and whyte lyke mylke. Then in the space of other ix dayes it waxeth redde, and is become thycke bloude: then in other twelve dayes, it begynneth to come to some fashyon: then in the xviii.dayes followyng, the face and other pryncipall membres, begyn to growe in to a ful shape and forme in longitude, latitude and profunditie. In the reste of the tyme unto the birth it is comforted, and prepared to come forth, the whiche many tymes chaunceth^[28] in the seuenth moneth, & the chyld proueth^[29] and doth very wel: but in the .viii monethe, fewe or none proue aboue^[30] the latter ende of the .ix. agayne, if it be borne, it proueth very wel, that is þe most comune^[31] course forty wekes  after the concepcion. The maner how the child lyeth in the mothers wombe, is thys: the face lyeth on bothe the knees, both the handes beyng between the face and the knees: after such maner that the nose dependeth^[32] betwene the knees, and ether of the eyes on ether of the knees ^[33]: so lyeth it round in maner, and the face towarde the inwarde part of the wombe: and thys partly haue I shewed you of the operacion of the matrice.^[34]

X Significat os sive portam matricis, que reseratur in naturali regressu suscipiens viri sperma.^[35]

Y. Collum matricis quod est longitudinis sex digitorum, inferius angustum habens orificum per quod vefice meatus urinam emittit. ^[36]

Z. Sunt due ingentes arteriales vene, quibus matrix affixa est nuncupate ale matricis. ^[37]

* Sunt testiculi mulierum utraque parte ipsius vulve^[38] fundi ex lateribus siti. Similem masculis circumvolutionem  recipientes magnitudine multo minores quam masculi ^[39]

                                                                                                    Finis

 ^[40]To honest & vertuous people, every thing is occasion and mater wherby they may glorifie & prayse God. The wicked & ungodly, contrariwyse in al thinges, seake to augment theyr leudness & devilysh lust. Wherefore good Christian  reders when Þey shalt read or beholde thys figure, wherin is expressed the ymage of man & woman both within & without, lowly yelde thanks to the mighty God of nature, diuisor & creator of al such thynges & haue no rebaude ^[41]& unreuer[ent?]^[42] communication of Þe […] for þat were greatly […]rtumely^[43] of nat[…] plesure of almighty […]^[44][45]

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[1] London. Wellcome Library. EPB 290.6. Available here: http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1665833~S12

[2] Vienna. MAK-Osterreichisches Museum fur angewandte Kunst. (Carlino:Cat. 8)

[3] For discussion of the links between Raynald and Geminus see  Crummer ‘The Copper Plates in Raynalde and Geminus’ Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine. 1927. 20: 53-6 

[4]A complication when discussing ‘The Woman’ is that Thomas Raynalde, the translator of it and self-described physician, is now thought to be a different person to the printer who might have been Thomas Raynald the elder or his son, also named Thomas Raynald! See the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography for a discussion of the three Raynald(e)s.

[5] Wellcome Library, London. EPB/D 296 &EPB 7211

[6] See Appendix for this description entitled ‘ A perfect and particular description of the secret parts of the body of woman with the signification of the letters contained in the same.’

[7] De Trinitate. Book 10.

[8] The Anatomy of Man is lost.

[9] thether there] B C thether:Ther(e)

[10] Signifyeth] B C omitted. (Also omitted from F & H)

[11] The diaphragm

[12] In common usage, bolke meant ‘burp.’ It may refer to the pharynx in this context.

[13] Gallbladder

[14] Menstrual flow

[15] Non] nam. Although this changes ‘not’ to ‘since,’ the general meaning is maintained by  the qualifying velut phrase.

[16] Error. B & C correct to ‘super.’

[17] Text B changes to pudendae to agree with cervicis – shameful cervix.

[18] Hihanti] hianti

[19]  The menses do not come straight from the liver, but rather at certain intervals, until it might arrive at those acetabula (shamefully above the opening of the cervix OR above the opening of the shameful cervix  ) from which these [menses] pour out, as if from a gaping open mouth.

[20] In B ‘Matrix’ but it is likely text A is using the ablative ‘matrice’ which would be correct following the proposition ‘before.’

[21] B & C correct to ‘through’. 

[22] The writer frequently uses ‘than’ where we would expect to see ‘then’ and vice versa.’ This might be a copying error from a secretary hand where ‘a’ and ‘e’ can be confused and later texts ‘correct’ much of it but use of the two words interchangeably does occur in other texts of this time.

[23]  C omits ‘and it is called in Laten Matrix: before it is the bladder.’ Probably an ‘eye skip’ error.

[24] B & C ‘Signifieth.’

[25] The endometrium. Literally ‘fleshy place’ in Latin. Note that two sentences later it is referred back to as ‘fleshie parte.’

[26] This idea is attributed to Parmenides in the 5^th or 6^th century BCE, was taken up by Galen and continued to be accepted as true until the 18^th century.

[27] In B ‘and’

[28] Chances. Happens.

[29] Proveth – to be good, sound, correct.  Akin to current obstetric term ‘to be viable.’

[30] prove above] B C prove. About. This clarifies the meaning considerably.

[31] Common

[32]Hangs down

[33] Text B omits “both the hands….ether of the knees”

[34] Here B & C stop following A and provide instead the ending ‘A Perfecte and Particular Description…’ (See Appendix 3)

[35] Sygnifyeth the mouth or door of the Matrix, which is revealed by a natural withdrawal as it receives the man's sperm.

[36] The neck of the matrix which is six fingers long, having below it a narrow opening through which the movement of the bladder sends forth urine. 

[37] These are two great arterial veins, called 'wings of the womb', to which the womb is affixed.

[38] This is either a spelling error of the Latin word ‘vulva’ or the French.

[39] These are the female "testicles" positioned on either side of the base of the vulva. Although they have a "circumvolution" like that of the male they are much smaller in size than the male.

[40] This ‘pointing hand’ symbol emphasises the importance of a passage.

[41] Ribald. Salacious. Debauched.

[42] I have supplied the ending which seems most likely.

[43] Unknown partial word –‘rtumely.’ However, ‘contumely,’ a word from the same period, means ‘offensive or abusive language.’ A similar meaning would be consistent with ‘ribaude communication’ here.

[44] The missing word here is almost certainly ‘God.’  

[45] The general meaning of the final phrase is likely to be that bawdy and irreverent speech about the image would be displeasing to God.

Religious Anxiety and Doubt in English Reformation Drama: Marlowe, Shakespeare and the Influence of Calvin & Luther.

The early modern period was a time of particular change, anxiety and uncertainty for England. With Henry VIII’s Act of Supremacy in 1534, England had broken from Rome. She then became Protestant under Edward VI in 1547 only to become Roman Catholic again under Mary Tudor in 1553. Persecution and bloodshed had accompanied both changes. The succession of Elizabeth in 1558 restored a more moderate form of Protestantism but there remained great anxiety and uncertainty regarding religious and political stability until the end of her reign in 1603 as the astute monarch avoided committing herself to the all-important questions of a consort or an heir.

         This sense of anxiety and irresolution in relation to religion is clearly discernible in much literature of the early modern period and none more so than The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe (circa 1592) and Hamlet (circa 1601) by William Shakespeare.  I will demonstrate this lack of resolution in their final scenes with a religious analysis drawing on contemporary Calvinist and Lutheran Protestantism.

        ‘What doctrine call you this?’ (1:47) asks Faustus in the first scene. We see particularly strong anxiety in Doctor Faustus which contains, as did Marlowe’s life, overt and covert challenges to Christian doctrine. It will be argued that in the final scene, Marlowe challenges the theology of St Augustine of Hippo, St Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin on which he has drawn throughout the play. By poignantly questioning established beliefs about original sin, good and evil, the nature of God and the nature of man, Marlowe denies his audience any satisfying resolution.

        The final scene of Hamlet also leaves many issues unresolved and contains strong religious themes surrounding Lutheranism. Hamlet, the Wittenberg student, says at the beginning of the last scene ‘in my heart there was a kind of fighting’ (5.2:4) before revealing a startling personality change. I will argue that by interpreting this line from the Lutheran perspective of the twofold nature of man, Hamlet’s change from a deeply thoughtful man trying to resolve everything perfectly to an impulsive one letting things resolve as they will actually constitutes a uniquely Lutheran resolution.


         On a first reading of the 1604 ‘A’ text of Dr Faustus it seems that little is left unresolved in the last scene. In the first scene Faustus reads ‘The reward of sin is death’(1:40) from Romans 6:23 after which he sins against God by selling his soul to the devil and is ultimately damned. I would argue that the plot does develop from this verse and lead to Faustus’ damnation but that Marlow challenges the simple consequentialism of this Christian belief. Margaret Ann O’Brien argues that ‘Dr Faustus reflects the Christian doctrine as presented in the scripture and tradition and recorded by the Fathers of the Church especially St Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine and St Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica‘ (1970 p2.) These writings, particularly on the nature of good and evil, inform Calvinist Elizabethan doctrine which will be shown to be problematized in the last scene of Dr Faustus.

            The scene begins with Faustus saying to his colleagues, ‘had I lived with thee, then had I still lived but now I die eternally’(13:3.) This is a different attitude to the one shown earlier when he had described hell as ‘a fable’(5:126) and torment as ‘mere old wives tales’(5:134.) By the final scene Faustus is in no doubt that the Christian god, and Hell, exist. By saying ‘The serpent that tempted Eve may be sav’d’ (13:16) Faustus evokes the original sin of forbidden knowledge of which he too is guilty.  

            Faustus is asked to remember that ‘God’s mercies are infinite’ (13-14.) He immediately denies this. ‘Faustus’ offences can never be pardoned’’ (15.) John McCloskey, writing in 1942, argued that this despair is the sin against the Holy Spirit by which he ‘denies to himself the grace and mercy of God’ (110-111.)  However, despair is evident in Faustus’ even before he sells his soul. In the very first scene he reads ‘The reward of sin is death’ (40) and says ‘That’s hard. If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves and there is no truth in us. Why then belike we must sin and so consequently die’(42-45.) Dollimore says of Faustus, ‘an insecurity verging on despair pre-exists his damnation’ and that he ‘registers a sense of human kind as miscreated’ (2010 pp112-113.) St Augustine and Thomas Aquinas both assert that God and all his works are perfectly good. ‘For evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name "evil."(City 11.9) John Calvin says ‘Accordingly, we should contemplate the evident cause of condemnation in the corrupt nature of humanity (Institutes.3.22.8.)Humanity is miscreated and inherently evil.

         In the final scene Faustus says ‘a surfeit of sin hath damn’d both body and soul’ (11) and admits that he has sold his soul. When a scholar says he will stay with him, he is told not ‘tempt not god’(48)  This is exactly what Faustus has done with his ‘surfeit’ of sin.  O’Brien says that Faustus’ ‘blasphemy is admirable in its completeness’ and that it ‘abolishes every hallmark’ (1970 p4.) He defiles the name of God and the saints in his rites. Ornstein argues that Faustus is an antichrist.  As Christ became human, Faustus wants to be a god.  As Christ resisted Satan, Faustus courts him. He even says ‘Consummatum est’ after he signs his soul away(1968. P1383.) Calvin says of God ‘He does not …leave no hope of pardon to voluntary sins, but … God is inexorably rigorous in punishing sacrilegious contempt thus shown to himself’(Institutes 3.3.20.) The one sin God will not forgive is a challenge to his authority.

         

         It is hard to imagine how Faustus could have ‘tempted’ God more thoroughly and perhaps Aquinas provides an explanation for his doing so, ‘man is said to tempt, sometimes indeed merely for the sake of knowing something; and for this reason it is a sin to tempt God; for man, being uncertain as it were, presumes to make an experiment of God's power’(1.114:2.)   John Cox argues ‘Traditionally, damnation had been understood as a logical necessity of divine love yet the defining characteristic of God in Dr Faustus is not love but overwhelming power’(2000. p112.) We see this most strongly in the last scene. In addition to one scholar warning another not to tempt God, Faustus tells his friends ‘Gentlemen, away lest you perish with me’(44-45!) Is this a just and loving God whom they fear will damn the good along with the evil?  Is Faustus really evil if even in his terror, he cares more about the innocent than God does? Ornstein argues that the final scene is very different from the earlier parody because now ‘Faustus death is a sacrifice which, like Christ’s, reveals the divine will’ of God’s law (1968. p1384.)

  

      God’s divine will in making a sacrifice of Faustus may have been in play almost from the start according to established theology. Speaking of demons attacking man, Aquinas says ‘The assault itself is due to the malice of the demons. But the ordering of the assault is from God’(1.114:2.) Calvin also held this view ‘Calvin asserts that in addition to Satan’s perverted nature, his perverted actions require God’s will and assent …sometimes he even says ‘god does not permit but governs by his power’’ (Partee 2008 p74.) This view is supported by Marlowe’s first chorus stating ‘Heaven conspired his overthrow’(1:23) and Mephistopheles being rather oblique on whether he was summoned by Faustus’ conjuration.   ‘That was the cause but per accidens’ (not the ultimate cause) (3:46.)

           Interestingly, Aquinal doctrine could even explain why the middle of the play is rather disappointing when Faustus uses his powers merely for party tricks. ‘(D)emons cannot work miracles, nor can any creature, but God alone’ but  ‘sometimes miracle may be taken in a wide sense, for …things which rouse man's astonishment’(1.114:4.) Demons have some showy skills but real power belongs to God and we see the difference in the final scene.

         If Faustus’ pact with Lucifer was orchestrated by God, what was his sin? Before the advent of Mephistopheles, Faustus had determined to seek forbidden knowledge. This is man’s ‘original sin,’ again related to power. Augustine says to ‘warn studious and able young men…not to venture heedlessly upon the pursuit of the branches of learning that are …beyond the pale of the Church’ (Doctrine 39.58.) Aquinas says ‘it is vicious and sinful, as being contrary to the natural order, that any one should assume to do what is above his power’ (1.21:2) and Calvin ‘he who leans on the divine… will not, in the pursuit of those things which men are wont most eagerly to desire, employ wicked arts (Christian life 2.9.)

         Having sold his soul at God’s instigation, could Faustus have saved himself by repenting? McClosky argues that he could even at the end and that his demons are simply his own despair (1942 p113) when he says ‘My God, I would weep but the devil draws in my tears. Oh he stays my tongue. I would lift up my hands, but see, they hold them’(30-31.) However, Faustus feels physically prevented from repenting as soon as he has sold his soul.  ‘My heart is so hardened I cannot repent. …fearful echoes thunder in my ears’ (5:194-6) This sounds like a Calvinist representation of God.  ‘God by renewing those whom he wills not to perish, gives them a sign of paternal favour…on the other hand, by hardening the reprobate, whose impiety is not to be forgiven, he thunders against them’(institutes 3.3.22.)

         Marlowe undermines the doctrine which claims that all good comes from God and all evil from the absence of God most strongly at the end of the final scene. God’s will is shown to be identical to that of the devils and he is present (albeit offstage) with them.  Dollimore says ‘God and Lucifer seem equally responsible in his final destruction … temporarily co-operating in his demise’ (2010 p111.) When Faustus says ‘Oh I’ll leap up to my God! Who pulls me down? See, see where Christ’s blood streams in the firmament!’ (69-70)  he is in the presence of both Christ and Lucifer’s demons. His addresses go back and forth between God and Christ and Lucifer and his demons. ‘Ah my Christ. Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ’(73) and ‘I will call on him (Christ:) Oh, spare me Lucifer!’ (74) Faustus says he can see God ‘s ‘ireful brows’ (75) and desperately wishes to be swallowed by the earth or evaporated and begs for some end to his eternal torture. His terror is described as ‘poignant and disturbing’ by Ornstein (1968 p1382.) As Faustus cries ‘My God! My God! Look not so fierce upon me’(110) the devils enter, presumably at God’s command.

         

         Faustus’ last words are ‘I’ll burn my books’ (113) before he is taken away and the chorus beseeches the audience ‘only to wonder at unlawful things’ (6) and not to be enticed to ‘practice more than heavenly power admits’(8.) The ultimate evil of seeking forbidden knowledge is here contrasted against the absolute good of eternally torturing a sympathetic human being. The play ends abruptly without further explanation or attempt to justify Faustus’ damnation. This is not the satisfying resolution of a morality play in which a good, loving God triumphs over a clearly evil sinner but a deeply unsettling one in which good and evil cannot be so traditionally allotted.

         Another early modern play, fascinating in its ambiguity, is Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Hamlet has been argued by many critics to be so contradictory and problematic that any resolution of its issues is impossible whilst others find deep thematic consistencies or patterns of symbolism or metaphor from which to draw widely diverse final resolutions. I would offer one such resolution. Hamlet has been a student in Wittenberg, the home of Martin Luther and the play contains strong Lutheran elements.  I will argue that many things are left unresolved in his last scene but that Hamlet’s decision to stop trying to resolve the situation perfectly constitutes a very Lutheran resolution. It will be demonstrated that issues raised in each of Hamlet’s soliloquys are resolved in the last scene.

         

          Hamlet’s personality undergoes a marked change at the beginning of the final scene which begins with his words ‘In my heart there was a kind of fighting’ (5.2:4.) Luther writes of a form of dualism in man which is very fitting here.  ‘Man is composed of a twofold nature, a spiritual and a bodily…; as regards the bodily nature, which they name the flesh... It is certain that absolutely none among outward things...has any influence in producing Christian righteousness’ (1520 CCL.) 

       

        Chris Hassel, centring his argument on Hamlet’s soliloquy in which he said ’Oh that this too, too solid flesh should melt’(1.2:129-58) draws on a Lutheran understanding of the flesh. To Luther, he argues, Hamlet’s agonised attempts to resolve the situation perfectly would be evidence of his being caught in the trap of the ‘prudence of the flesh’( 1994 p610.) To try to do the right thing as a Christian from one’s own reasoning is doomed to failure as reason is part of the ‘fleshly nature.’ Christian righteousness is achieved through the ‘spiritual nature’ which only comes from faith and is independent of merit or worthiness (CCL.) Within the ‘spiritual nature’, Luther identifies a further duality in the form of two types of righteousness. The first is external – it comes from Christ once faith has been reposed in him and this then produces the second, ‘Christ’s righteousness becomes our righteousness’ (1518 2KR) and only then do good works and intentions become truly righteous and can matters be resolved according to gods will.

  

        After this ‘fighting,’ Hamlet’s ‘compulsion to do and know perfectly’ (Hassel 1994 p616) is gone.  The next two actions of Hamlet’s are impulsive and have positive outcomes.  The opening of the letter and the boarding the pirate ship result in his becoming aware of the plot and escaping it.  Hassel argues that Hamlet has overthrown ‘sovereign reason in favour of God’s grace’ and we see a move in the final scene ‘from the mind of the flesh  to the prudence of the spirit’ and that the most drastic change here is Hamlet’s ‘letting be’ and being guided by God’s will (1994 p621.) Hamlet’s words support this ‘Praised be rashness …when our deep plots do pall: and that should teach us there’s a divinity that shapes our ends.’  Elizabeth Watson argues that this ‘acceptance of providence’ could be problematic as it is an apparent shift from Lutheranism to Calvinism (2004 p489.) I would argue that Hamlet does not speak of God directly affecting the physical world as Calvinistic providence is understood but rather describes a Lutheran ‘miracle of faith’ occurring in himself.  That opening the letter was an uncharacteristic decision of his is emphasised when Hamlet uses the words ‘making so bold’ and ‘forgetting my manners’ to describe it (5.2. 14-15.)

         In his soliloquy in Act two Scene two Hamlet had continued to doubt himself and rage at his own inaction ‘I am pigeon livered and lack gall’(532 -90.) Luther says of ‘those who have been placed in a responsible office by God. It is their necessary function to punish and judge evil men…because it is not they but God who does this (1518 2KR) In the final scene we see this new godlike authority in Hamlet when he speaks of sentencing Guildenstern and Rosencrantz to death with ‘no shriving time allowed’ (47) because ‘their defeat does by their own insinuation grow… tis dangerous when the baser nature comes between…mighty opposites’(59-62.)  Hamlet further confirms his position as rightful king and agent of God when he mentions for the first time his uncle’s usurpation of his crown saying he ‘popp’d in between the election and my hopes’ (65) and defends his decision to kill him. The words he uses to do this, ‘Is’t not perfect conscience to quit him with this arm? ‘Is’t not to be damn’d to let this canker of our nature come in further evil?’(69-70) are strongly Lutheran. In his address to princes during the Peasants Rebellion Luther says ‘For a prince and lord must remember in this case that he is God's minister and the servant of his wrath (Romans XIII) …If he can punish and does not - even though the punishment consist in the taking of life and the shedding of blood - then he is guilty of all the murder and all the evil which these fellows commit’(1525 ARMHP.)

         Hamlet is now confident in his kingly authority under God and following his verbal duel with the poorly armed Osric, we see further evidence he has moved away from the prudence of the flesh in his newfound readiness to accept death. In his soliloquy of Act 3 scene 1 Hamlet had said ‘To be or not to be: that is the question’ (56-89) and fearfully pondered his options. Hassel says ‘ Two of Luther’s clearest symptoms of the enslaving prudence of the flesh are also two of Hamlet’s most widely acknowledged problems, his fear of death and his dread of Judgement’ (1994 p612.) There is no sign of these in the final scene. ‘Thou wouldst not think how ill all’s around my heart: but it is no matter.’ (My emphasis 197-8) ‘If it be now, tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all’ (205-7.) The implication is that that Hamlet is ready. He has received grace and is in God’s hands.

  

      Hamlets final soliloquy before his marked change is in Act 4 Scene 4. Becoming aware of Fortinbras fighting a much smaller cause he again bemoans his indecision and accuses himself of doing nothing but ‘sleep and feed’ (35.) ‘Whether it be bestial oblivion or some craven scruple of thinking too precisely on the event (40-41)…from this point on all my thoughts be bloody’(66.)  Again we have two types of prudence of the flesh; bodily needs and human scruples. Again his words echo Luther’s address to Princes ‘Here, then, there is no time for sleeping; no place for patience or mercy. It is the time of the sword’(1925 ARMHP.)At this point Hamlet commits himself to the duel which will result in the death of his uncle, mother, Laertes and himself. Hamlet apologises to Laertes but, significantly, distances himself from his previous actions before he had received God’s grace ‘Was’t Hamlet wrong’d Laertes? Never Hamlet’ (218 -9.)

     In the fight which follows the queen dies from drinking from Hamlet’s poisoned cup, Laertes and Hamlet mortally wound each other, ask each other forgiveness and grant it and Hamlet finally slays his uncle using both methods by which he had tried to ensure Hamlet’s death. Can this be considered a resolution of all issues and can justice be considered to have been served? By Lutheran standards it can. We may not know if Gertrude was involved in her husband’s death, if Ophelia committed suicide or if the ghost of old Hamlet is now at peace but God does.  Watson argues ‘To reformers the dead need not be remembered or long mourned but simply left to God’ (2004 p482.) Luther said ‘vigils and requiem masses and yearly celebrations of requiems are useless, and are merely the devil’s annual fair’ (LW p369)  To try to influence God on behalf of the dead or even to worry about the souls of the dead was to doubt God’s justice. Claudius himself says ‘To persever in obstinate condolement is a course of impious stubbornness…it shows a will most incorrect to heaven’(1.2:93-97.)

       Throughout the conversation with Horatio in the final scene, the change in Hamlet is emphasised by Horatio’s surprised responses. Before this the men had understood each other well. Perhaps when Hamlet, dying, says ‘Had I but time…Oh, I could tell you’ (329-330) he is speaking of his shift from fleshly to spiritual nature? This would make of his final request to tell Fortinbras ’ the occurrents more or less…the rest is silence’(350-51) an acknowledgement that Horatio can relate the events but not the spiritual significance of them because he has not made the shift to a spiritual nature? This would be borne out by Horatio’s very ‘fleshly’ words to Fortinbras ‘So shall you hear of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts’(373-4.)

        If Shakespeare can be considered to have resolved all issues in Hamlet from a Lutheran perspective, it remains uncertain whether he considered this resolution a positive or negative one. To Edward Oakes, Hamlet is Shakespeare’s secretly Catholic criticism of Lutheranism which ends in Hamlet’s damnation (2010 p 13) whilst to Hassel it is a spiritual journey which ends with his salvation (1994 p622.) The ambiguity is unlikely to be an accident and the ability of the play to be nuanced in either direction in performance may well be a cautious playwright’s protection in such uncertain times.

       The uncertainty of the late Elizabethan period is seen in Doctor Faustus as Marlowe subverts and questions the theological doctrine of his time. In this way the seemingly straightforward resolution of Faustus’ damnation can be interpreted as a challenge to Calvinist beliefs about original sin, good and evil, the nature of God and the nature of man which cannot be comfortably resolved. In contrast, the ambiguous ending of Hamlet seems to defy resolution but when interpreted from a Lutheran perspective of the duality of man Hamlet’s behaviour takes on new significance. From this viewpoint, Hamlet’s decision not to try to resolve everything perfectly himself but to leave his own fate and that of everyone else to God is a uniquely Lutheran resolution.

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