| The subject of oaths, and the manner in which they are professed, recanted, or broken pervades the literature of the Sixteenth Century and can be found with significant frequency in all of its genres. This project uses the works of six major authors to demonstrate the importance of sworn bond in the literature of the Tudor period. It also examines the paradoxes and problems associated with sworn bond as a cultural phenomenon.;The circumstances under which a person might swear, and whether those circumstances can remain valid and verified indefinitely, form an essential part of the works of poets like Spenser and Shakespeare, dramatists like Bale and Marlowe, and prose writers like Roper and Elyot. These authors examine the act of swearing an oath by creating works in which oaths are integral parts; they discuss issues of trust, deal with the subject of perjury, and contemplate the effects of forswearing an oath as a result of contemporary issues of political consequence and personal conscience.;This project offers a somewhat "seamless" view of sixteenth-century literature as it explores boundaries between traditional definitions of genre and period, and focuses on the ways in which literature affects its audience as a constant presence in society. |
