The Paradigm of the Case of Conscience in English Renaissance Literature

FAIN: FB-11421-72

Carroll University (Waukesha, WI 53186-5593)
Camille A. Slights (Project Director: September 1972 to present)

To demonstrate the influence of English Renaissance cases of conscience on four major poets: Donne, Herbert, Shakespeare and Milton. The case of conscience was the chractersitic literary form of casuistry, the study of individual moral responsibility under divine and civil law. While the importance of moral decision making in English Renaissance literature is recognized, no scholar has studied it systematically in relation to the themes and forms of casuistry.