| Popis: |
Questioning the thesis that ‘celebrity’ was invented in the eighteenth century, the Introduction begins by noting the difficulties of distinguishing between ‘celebrity’, ‘fame’ and ‘reputation’, but acknowledges that we are dealing with the slippery subjectivity of popular esteem. However, it is argued that to plunge straight into an analysis of the Reformation period would be mistaken; the heroes and heroines of late medieval England must first be identified. We show that the decades preceding the Break with Rome saw a culture war in which Renaissance humanists comprehensively discredited those role-models. The result, for a generation or more, was a crisis of trust—and that was the context within which the emergence of Reformation reputations should be understood. Re-asserting the importance of individual agency, we nevertheless expose the discrepancy between what contemporaries knew about leading players in the religious upheaval and what modern scholars know from the life-writing now familiar from extensive study. Much life-writing about non-martyr Reformation celebrities only became widely available in the next century, when for reasons of ecclesiastical partisanship (at least) there was inconsistency over which ‘Lives’ to include in biographical anthologies. On the other hand, biographies tell only part of the story with regard to reputation formation, since they are reactive: some kind of reputation must already have existed. How was that created? And how do reputations evolve? We address those questions in three case-studies. The first study examines monuments and epitaphs as vehicles for fostering reputations. The second presents Cavendish’s ‘Life’ of Wolsey as a classic example of the reactive biography, problematic in both structure and content. The third study takes us out of the sixteenth century and into the world of film. It is argued that historical dramas are a double-edged sword: they can hugely enhance a reputation, but at the same time sow myths that are hard to dispel. The Introduction concludes by explaining the rationale behind the choice of subjects treated in the ensuing chapters and brings out how those chapters elucidate the book’s general theme. |
