RT Article
T1 Of Pastorals and Partisans: Nationalist Variations on the Myth of Rural Virtue in Sixteenth-Century Anti-Protestant Polemics
JF The sixteenth century journal
VO 51
IS 2
SP 343
OP 366
A1 Flood, Christopher M. 1975-
LA English
YR 2020
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1751488772
AB In the tumultuous time preceding the French Wars of Religion, one innovative partisan author infused his anti-Protestant rhetoric with nationalistic discourse based in the myth of rural virtue. Drawing on existing anxieties regarding urbanization, Artus Désiré depicted Geneva as a festering slum teeming with corruption and debauchery. He contrasted this with an idyllic French countryside inhabited by traditional, rustic characters whose innocence fostered pure devotion and protected them from Calvinism's corrupting influence. Building on this dichotomy, Désiré conflated socioeconomic divisions with political borders and theological distinctions to further alienate Calvin and his followers. In his portrayal, Calvinists had abandoned their native communities in favor of a foreign heresy associated with the corrupt and corrupting urban landscape. By recontextualizing the immediate conflict, Désiré provided a model for future anti-Protestant polemics.
K1 16th century French literature
K1 Anti-Protestantism literature
K1 Catholic apologetics
K1 Country life in literature
K1 Desire, Artus
K1 Ethics in literature
K1 Pamphlets
K1 Partisanship
K1 Pastoral societies in literature