SUMMERS, KAREN CRADY, Ph.D. Reading Incest - The University ...

141
Proud dame of Narbonne, lo! A bare foot monk
Thus pays thy scorn, thus vindicates his altars.
(V.1.12-16)
Cox says that Walpole’s purpose is to demonstrate Catholicism as hypocritical; the play
“takes a number of rather standard cheap shots at priests and the Catholic Church in
general. . . priests are seen to pursue their ‘saintly’ life for money” (128) and, as we have
seen, Benedict “preys upon the Countess’s moody religiosity” (ibid.) to suit his own
purpose. Cox notes that rather than suggesting the world is disquieted by the act of
incest, the play suggests instead that the act of incest is symptomatic of a broken
world. Furthermore, the play poses the possibility, or more accurately, the lack thereof,
that religion, of any denomination, is able to organize a world that allows incest and other
atrocities to occur, despite the church's aim to structure or reinforce the lives of its
congregation in accordance with the teachings of the church, rather than beyond them
(127). That incest is conflated with false religion is symptomatic of a time in which there
is perhaps less certainty in matters of faith. Organized (Catholic) religion has failed the
Countess in her hour of need, and patriarchy has failed to contain female sexuality, with
devastating results. In a moment reminiscent of the medieval idea of kynde, Edmund
defends himself against his mother’s accusation of improper conduct on the night of his
father’s death. He suggests that it is ‘natural’ to seek love from a willing and beautiful
girl:
. . . Dost thou
Hold love a crime so irremissible?
Wouldst thou have turn’d thee from a willing girl, [the maid Beatrice]
To sing a requiem to thy father’s soul? (II.2.29-32).