The dramas and prose works of John Rastell
Authors:   , Geritz Albert J 
Published: June 2024

A study of the literary career of John Rastell (1475- 1536), Thomas More's brother-in-law, this dissertation re-evaluates and adds insights to previous scholarly work. Its purposes are to collect and evaluate published and unpublished criticism on Rastell, to expand the knowledge and appreciation of his dramas, to give his prose works careful analyses, and finally to ascertain his importance as an advocate of Christian Humanism. This study includes seven chapters, the first of which covers Rastell's life. It begins with a chronological table of his life and times and a genealogical chart showing his relationship to More, John Heywood, and John Donne. It focuses mainly on the events which influenced his literary output. The stress falls upon his association with More's circle, his abortive expedition to the New World, his print shops, his interest in pageants and drama, his history, his involvement in the purgatory controversy, and his ever-present concern for the good of the English commonwealth. The next three chapters are devoted to Rastell's dramas: The Four Elements, Calisto and Melebea, and Of Gentleness and Nobility, The Four Elements utilizes the morality play Structure, combining serious matter about cosmology and exploration with comic episodes to teach a primarily secular rather than a theological lesson. Although Calisto and Gentleness cannot conclusively be placed in the Rastell canon, evidence is advanced for his probable authorship of them. An adaptation of La Celestina, Calisto is simultaneously a morality play with an exhortation to virtue, an interlude for a courtly audience, a romantic- realistic drama, and a prototype of tragi-comedy. Gentleness, a dialogue-debate on true nobility, is studied according to new critical methods; its ambiguity of character and theme indicates the complexity of what, at first sight, appears to be a simple play. Rastell's prose history, The Pastyme of People, is the subject of the fifth chapter. Attention is given to its unique typography and woodcuts which Rastell himself may have designed. This interesting history of western Europe from the day of Creation to 1485 is the product of certain medieval- Renaissance notions about historiography combined with Rastell's intention to use history to teach lessons in good governance. The sixth chapter considers Rastell's entry into the purgatory controversy with A newe boke of Purgatory, which was influenced by More's Utopia. Since this tract is cast as a dialogue between a Christian and a Turk, it is placed in the long tradition of dialogue-debates. The last chapter explores Rastell's prefaces in which he shows his concern for translation as a means of enabling the English language to express more complex concepts as well as his desire to stimulate the growth of a native literature by looking to the past achievements of English writers. These emphases define his position as an early Renaissance humanist. An annotated bibliography, which describes rather than evaluates available scholarly work on Rastell, is appended. Since the Rastell canon is small, and since he did not concentrate his efforts in one genre, it is difficult to determine his literary merit. Because the religious and political turmoil of his age cut short what influence he might have had, he will never be a major literary fiture. Yet his works must be admired for his sincere intentions, his experimentation with form, and his ever-present concern for educating the citizenry of the English commonwealth.