Reason and Religion in Fulgens and Lucres

Reason and Religion in Fulgens and Lucres

Seeing that the main purpose of college is to educate, perhaps the college administration might take a lesson from the 16th Century citizenry of England and host a fantastic dinner play in the fashion of Medwall's famous, Fulgens and Lucres. This interlude, small in cast members but big on Humanism, demanded that each viewer take an active role in the performance; the play, though covering many morals and ideologies, focused on the everyday interaction between the two seemingly opposite poles of religion and reason. Though poising as mere dinner entertainment, Fulgens and Lucres served the goal of enlightening its audience toward the apex of the English Renaissance - the need to unite reason and religion within the life of each and every person.

Before one can ponder over the relationship between reason and religion, a person must first receive the proper education. As Sir Thomas Wyatt, Erasmus, and Sir Thomas More, the last being possibly an actor in this very play during his youth, claim throughout their works and letters, the key aspect to being a decent, contributing member of society rests in the pages of books, dwells within the classroom, and glitters on the lens of a telescope; knowledge undeniably holds the key to developing a logical, autonomous human being. In

his Book of the Governour, Wyatt developed his own theory as to the proper raising of a young boy so he could someday attain to reach a position in the royal court. Although, he ludicrously clamored for the importance of a nurse's milk to the young infant and complete isolation from women during a boy's studies, Wyatt declares, "a tutor should be provided," (Wyatt 43) to the bo...

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... Medwall raises the antey up a notch though, and proclaims that reason without religion will serve no justice. Reason, when kept in check by religious beliefs, will, just like Lucres and Gayus, make for the perfect marriage and will guide the educated person down the path of enlightenment and true knowledge.

Works Cited and Consulted

Baskerville, Charles R. 1927. 'Conventional Features of Medwall's Fulgens and Lucres'. Modern Philology 24: 419-42.

Colley, J. S. 1975. 'Fulgens and Lucres: Politics and Aesthetics'. Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 23: 322-30.

Jones, Robert C. 1971. 'The Stage and the 'Real' World in Medwall's Fulgens and Lucres'. Modern Language Quarterly 32: 131-42.

Medwall, Henry. 1926. Fulgens & Lucres: A Fifteenth-Century Secular Play. Edited by F. S. Boas and A. W. Reed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.