Abstract:

A recent New York Times headline reads, "Sweet Potato Curry and Mushroom Ragout? That's Comfort." In stark contrast to our trivial physical pleasure, for sixteenth and seventeenth century England comfort embodied the fundamental experience of salvation. Comfort was, therefore, one of the most significant and contentious Reformation terms, both in its theological origins and in its radical secular incarnations. Early Modern England began to turn away from the "God of all comfort." Comfort circulated through a diverse body of texts--theatrical, lyrical, as well as theological--each laying claim to the rightful source of this resolving, affirming experience. Theological texts sought to reclaim comfort for God by representing comfort "plainly," as a direct reflection of divine experience. Dramatic and lyrical works instead, "played," exposing the new rift between comfort and religion. This dissertation demonstrates that such diverse authors as Foxe, Shakespeare, Jonson, Herbert, Baxter and Bunyan, all engaged the debate over the transformation of comfort. In early modern England the meaning of life began to change. Comfort was the marker of this cultural, intellectual and spiritual transition, from the "sweet and comfortable" doctrine of predestination, even unto our own "comfort foods."