Exorcism and its texts: Demonic possession in early modern literature of England and Spain

This study elucidates the tensions in early modern Spanish and English literature written about demonic possession and exorcism. The thesis of this dissertation is that closer attention to the many different Renaissance and Baroque genres which incorporate scenes of exorcism or exorcistic language will demonstrate the adaptability of this topos to a broad range of authorial purposes, audience responses, cultural paradigms, and patterns of belief.;Exorcistic terminology is one linguistic register through which early modern authors could make convincing portrayals of extraordinary religious phenomena. "Extraordinary religious phenomena" could include demonic possession and exorcism, but they could also include madness or murder presented in an exorcistic context These extraordinary phenomena, which were also seen within categories of the neo-Aristotelian "legitimate marvelous," were approached from many different perspectives by early modern writers. Each of these approaches results in a different formal treatment, so that my study is organized according to the (sometimes conflicting) genres through which early modern writers envisioned their world.;Each of my chapters addresses a different genre or genres in which exorcism appears---comic drama; picaresque and satire; romance, the interlude, and hagiographical drama; tragedy; and the novel---and explores its unique appropriation of theologemes from the exorcism ritual. In comic drama, exorcism is a synecdoche for curing the body politic, while in the picaresque, demonic possession is a source of forbidden knowledge. In romance, the interlude, and the comedia de santos, demonic possession and exorcism are humanized in distinct and profoundly original ways. While exorcism fails within the realm of tragedy, the novel re-invents exorcism as the protagonist performs his own exorcistic ritual.;Recognizing (and re-cognizing) another age's values and preoccupations requires a certain respect for them. The rituals, beliefs, and signs of exorcism may not carry today the stability they embodied for early modern readers, but the fact that early modern writers incorporated them into their work---in many different generic variations---confirms that in their original historical context, these rituals, beliefs, and signs were still effective purveyors of artistic tension, emotion, and power.