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Crackinge Thraso: the Braggart Soldier Image in Sixteenth-Century Sermons and Religious Polemic

Derrin, Daniel

Crackinge Thraso: the Braggart Soldier Image in Sixteenth-Century Sermons and Religious Polemic Thumbnail


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Abstract

The article contributes to recent debates about the use of “profane learning” by humanist scholars in the sixteenth century in their sermons and religious polemic. It does this by surveying the use of references in such texts to the braggart soldier “Thraso” from the ancient Roman comedy Eunuchus, by Terence. The article situates the surprising number of references to this morally dubious figure—in sermons, polemic and wider religious writing—within a Renaissance pedagogy that stressed the character’s usefulness for the moral and political imagination. Identifying differences between the rhetorical contexts of sermons and polemic, it surveys and analyses a range of references to Thraso, and argues that even evocations of such a resolutely hateful figure as Thraso could vary in comic tone. In addition, such evocations were not only simple quotations or epithets; they could also be attempts to channel whole scenes from Terence’s play.

Citation

Derrin, D. (2017). Crackinge Thraso: the Braggart Soldier Image in Sixteenth-Century Sermons and Religious Polemic. English Studies, 98(7), 704-716. https://doi.org/10.1080/0013838x.2017.1339991

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 2, 2017
Online Publication Date Jul 18, 2017
Publication Date Jul 18, 2017
Deposit Date Mar 15, 2017
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal English Studies
Print ISSN 0013-838X
Electronic ISSN 1744-4217
Publisher Taylor and Francis Group
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 98
Issue 7
Pages 704-716
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/0013838x.2017.1339991

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