"I sing of cruelty and compassion together": Reading Thomas Nashe's Religious Rhetoric through Kenneth Burke's Perspective by Incongruity

This study considers the late 16th - early 17th century English writer Thomas Nashe’s various texts through a rhetorical lens as informed by the 20th century rhetoric scholar Kenneth Burke’s works. Nashe remains an enigmatic character in English literature as he presses the boundaries of appropriateness in various ways, and, despite his attempts to guide his readers to Christian application, the texts present problems for reconciliation with a Christian motive. However, Burke’s discussion of perspective by incongruity and the dramatistic pentad provide a helpful set of terms for understanding how Nashe’s texts work to accomplish such a motive. This study primarily considers three of Nashe’s most well-known texts, Christs Teares over Jerusalem, Pierce Penilesse, and The Unfortunate Traveller, along with the lesser known The Terrors of the Night to present Nashe as consistently pressing the boundaries of rhetorical appropriateness to prompt his readers to a reconsideration of their interior motives. His texts accomplish this goal by developing incongruous perspectives that seek to disrupt the readers’ expectations of each of these types of texts. This study also serves as a working example for combining the disciplines of literary and rhetorical studies in effective ways.