反動與反撲：英國文藝復興時期文壇和講道壇的交戰

Reaction and Counter-Reaction: The Elizabethan Clash between the Pulpit and the Literary Circle

一五七○年代至一五八○年代之間，屬於新教的英國改革教會已形成國內宗教界的主流力量，同時政壇上重要人物的新教徒也與之互為呼應，新教的道德標準、倫理規範、經濟觀和文化事務準則大致上與政府執政的基準相同，尤其是在首善之區的倫敦市。在藝文活動方面，固然有宮廷娛樂的層次，也有民間的層次，而剛好民間戲劇在這個年代也大肆開展，吸引了許多倫敦市民觀看。新教的宣教士和倫敦市政當局便採用講道宣教的方式和行政手法壓抑和攻擊民間戲劇的演出，將之視為邪惡的象徵，但卻對宮中類同的情況似乎視若無睹。在這一連串的新教（尤其是清教徒）的攻擊當中，戲劇、詩歌、音樂、舞蹈以及其他娛樂都受到波及，文壇中人便出來回應反駁，意外地促成了英國首批正式的文學批評和理論的出現。本文針對這二十年間的現象，描畫出這種文學批評和辯誣思考的線索路向，藉供瞭解英國文思轉向的參考。

By the 1570s and 1580s, the Reformed Church of England had become firmly entrenched as the religious mainstream. Politicians who were Protestants joined efforts with the church in promoting a new set of moral, ethical, economic and cultural standards. These efforts were vigorously pressed in London where public artistic affairs and entertainments took place. Although the Protestant and Puritan preachers attacked such pastimes and entertainments from the pulpit, they paid no regard to similar activities in the court. Rather, they focused a series of conjoined attacks implicating drama, poetry, music, dance and other forms of pastime among the public. To counteract these ＂reactionary＂ efforts of the church, a number of heavyweight literary figures came out to refute the charges, thereby accidentally launching the first appearance of serious literary criticism or rather poetics in England. Focusing on this twenty-year period in England, this article maps out the contour of the critical and contentious purport of the two camps to provide an overview of the Protestant thinking of the time.