The second great factor in the literature which has been under survey is the religious, the currents and The Counter-
Reformation. counter-currents of religious passion which agitate the century from first to last. The Protestant Reformation had spent its full force before the sixteenth century closed, and was entering on a struggle for existence with the forces of the Catholic reaction, which followed the Council of Trent, the rise of the Jesuits, and the setting in order of the Roman Church. Orthodox Protestantism left no great mark on the pure literature of this time, with the notable exception of the writings of Milton, whose orthodoxy was in a constant process of disintegration, and of Bunyan later. It is otherwise with the so-called Counter-Reformation, and the eddies which it produced in other than Roman Catholic countries and churches. To it is due, in the first place, the definite ending in Italy of the anti-religious and anti-clerical current which had flowed since the Renaissance. In the change of tone which took place there was a good deal of hypocrisy as well as sincerity.[1] Tasso's pure and pious Gerusalemme Liberata having to establish its orthodoxy, while Marino's lascivious Adone poses as a moral allegory, is not an edifying example of clerical influence in literature, and Milton has described, in ever-memorable words, the condition of Italy under the Inquisition. But the more interesting results of the reaction
- ↑ For full treatment consult Dejob, De l'Influence du Concile de Trent sur la Littérature et les Beaux-Arts chez les Peuples catholiques. Paris, 1884.
