England's "Best Birthright": Inheritance as Law and Theology in Early Modern English Literature.

Abstract

This dissertation studies Early Modern English representations of inheritance. Proceeding from the observation that law and theology are intertwined discourses in the period, it examines how legal and theological accounts of inheritance inflect one another. Drawing on the insights of law and literature scholarship, which insists on reading legal texts as literary acts, I examine the way that inheritance law and theology engage their readers in a dialectical process of subject formation. Moreover, because literary texts are particularly suited to representing intellectual and affective experience, I turn to poetry to study Early Modern legal and theological subjectivity. I ultimately argue that inheritance is a site of ambivalence: while it offers a vehicle for intergenerational gift and blessing, it also creates social and familial disruptions marked by aggression and even violence.

The dissertation consists of four body chapters. The first chapter argues that Edward Coke’s representation of English inheritance law in the Institutes of the Laws of England relies on theological language and structure to assert the authority of the common law and the common lawyers. The second chapter argues that John Donne’s Holy Sonnets use the language of inheritance law to seek assurance of salvation. While inheritance law allows Donne to imagine himself as God’s heir, the violence latent in both English inheritance law and biblical election makes inheritance an unstable ground upon which to build spiritual assurance. The third chapter demonstrates that George Herbert’s poems in The Temple use the language of inheritance law to describe the atoning work accomplished by Christ’s crucifixion. Drawing on the work of René Girard, I argue that Herbert’s poetry also links inheritance law to the human violence from which Christ saves humanity. Inheritance is thus, for Herbert, a locus of sin and a vehicle of salvation. The fourth chapter argues that, like Herbert, Milton represents sin and salvation in the language of inheritance law. Reading Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes, I demonstrate how Milton highlights the ethical disruptions that result when historical figures claim to act as “Sons of God.”