Mar 6, 2020
In 1581, a younger Englishman named Henry Walpole attended the
execution of the Jesuit Edmund Campion. As Campion was hung, drawn
and quartered, Walpole stood shut sufficient to be spattered along with his
holy blood. Although Campion’s fame in England was already nice,
Walpole would amplify it additional with a splendid, prolonged poem,
which grew to become enormously standard amongst English Catholics—so standard
that the person who printed the ebook had his ears reduce off as
punishment.
In his poem Walpole wrote:
We can not worry a mortal torment, we,
This martyr’s blood hath moistened all our hearts,
Whose parted quarters once we probability to see
We study to play the fixed Christian’s components.
This was greater than wordplay: Two years after Campion’s demise,
Walpole grew to become a priest, and was himself hung for the religion in
1595.
St. Henry Walpole was not the one martyr who wrote poems. The
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries produced numerous males whose brave
religion was accompanied by prodigious studying and literary expertise.
St. Thomas Extra wrote poems whereas languishing within the Tower of
London. One other Jesuit martyr, St. Robert Southwell, powerfully
influenced the later motion of “metaphysical poetry”, together with
the best Protestant poets of succeeding centuries—resembling
George Herbert and John Donne.
The poetry of the English martyrs has been collected in an
anthology known as Lyra Martyrum. Benedict Whalen, the
editor of the second version, joins Thomas to debate these
authors, with Catholic Tradition Audiobooks’ James T. Majewski
performing a number of of their works.
Contents
[2:08] The historic/literary/academic circumstances that
gave us a interval of martyr-poets
[7:23] Their affect as poets within the succeeding centuries
[10:26] St. Robert Southwell’s Prefatory Epistle on the aim
of poetry
[12:58] All of the poets within the first version of the anthology have
since been beatified or canonized
[14:29] The martyrdoms of the Jesuit Saints Edmund Campion and
Henry Walpole
[17:43] St. Henry Walpole, “Upon the Martyrdom of M. Edmund
Campion”
[30:23] The custom of meditating on the 4 Final Issues
[33:08] St. Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, “Meditation upon
Heaven”
[37:43] St. Thomas Extra’s early poems written for courtly
events
[40:11] Extra’s poems written within the Tower of London: “Lewis the
Misplaced Lover” and “Davy the Dicer”
[44:17] The theme of Fortune in medieval and Renaissance
philosophy and poetry
[47:12] The affect of Latin classics on English verse
[49:16] Extra’s affect on English prose
[51:29] The life and work of St. Robert Southwell
[54:36] St. Robert Southwell, “The Burning Babe”
[59:39] “A Little one My Selection”
[1:05:27] Southwell’s conceptual and sonic density: excerpts
from “The Nativity of Christ” and “Look House”
[1:09:13] “I Die Alive”
[1:12:52] “Mary Magdalen’s Criticism at Christ’s Loss of life”
[1:16:30] The outstanding story of St. Robert Southwell’s
martyrdom
[1:26:10] The appendix of this version of Lyra
Martyrum
Hyperlinks
Lyra Martyrum https://www.clunymedia.com/product/lyra-martyrum/
Benedict Whalen https://www.hillsdale.edu/school/benedict-whalen/
Catholic Tradition Audiobooks https://www.catholicculture.org/audiobooks
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