Equivocation, Cognition, and           Political Authority in Early           Modern England

Butler, Todd

doi:10.7560/tsll54106

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 14 publications

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“…313-15). For a full and more recent account of equivocation theory and its ramifications, factoring in Macbeth, see (Butler 2012). 17 For a book-length study arguing this see (Kinney 2001, esp.…”

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That Suggestion: Catholic Casuistry, Complexity, and Macbeth

Curran¹

2018

Religions

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In a keeping with the view that Shakespeare harbored a sympathetic attitude to Catholic ways of seeing, this essay argues that Macbeth is a study in the dangers of oversimplification and certainty. In contradistinction to how Spenser’s Redcrosse Knight escapes the Cave of Despaire, Macbeth would benefit greatly from probing, questioning, nuancing, and sifting through ambiguity. He needs to examine the particular attenuation of his own moral thinking, and needs to engage equivocation, in the forms of both amphibology and mental reservation.

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confidence: 99%

That Suggestion: Catholic Casuistry, Complexity, and Macbeth

Curran¹

2018

Religions

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“As it is an Evil”: Defensive Equivocation in Measure for Measure

Schumann

Groves

2021

English Studies

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Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?" -"I do; and bear the shame most patiently". Thus begins one of the most overlooked dialogues in Measure for Measure. Hidden in what appears to be an irrelevant rhetorical exercise in penitentiary pedagogy is in fact a covert battle of semantic appropriation and dissimulation which has largely gone unnoticed by audiences and critics alike. This paper seeks to address this gap through a close reading of the use of equivocation in Measure for Measure, grounded in the linguistic and theological controversies of Early Modern theology. This paper suggests that whilst the practice of equivocation seems to be condemned by Shakespeare elsewhere, in Measure for Measure he explores the liberating potential of Jesuitical discursive practices as a subtle probing of the very nature of truth, and as a means of defence against an unjust authority.

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The Oath of Allegiance, Hannah Arendt, and the Trials of Jacobean Political Theology

Butler¹

2018

Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies

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Equivocation, Cognition, and Political Authority in Early Modern England

Cited by 4 publications

References 14 publications

That Suggestion: Catholic Casuistry, Complexity, and Macbeth

That Suggestion: Catholic Casuistry, Complexity, and Macbeth

“As it is an Evil”: Defensive Equivocation in Measure for Measure

The Oath of Allegiance, Hannah Arendt, and the Trials of Jacobean Political Theology

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