Thomas More: The Search for the Inner Man (Revised) - Softcover

Recent writings about Thomas More have questioned his integrity and motivation and have challenged the long-held view of him as a humane, wise, and heroic "man for all seasons." This new book responds to these revisionist studies by closely and persuasively analyzing More's writings as well as Holbein's portraits of More and his family. "Martz cuts down the revived charge of More as a bloodthirsty hunter of heretics, a furious, sexually repressed, and frustrated man. . . . This penetrating rebuttal of the revisionists deserves high commendation."-Choice "Martz draws a compelling picture of More's attempts during his lonely imprisonment to adjust to his human fear of death and to see his own plight in the perspective of the universal human condition. In these essays More's voice and personality speak to us from his own literate and humorous prose."-M. Edmund Hussey, Antioch Review "In his gracefully written Thomas More: The Search for the Inner Man, Louis L. Martz provides a sharply different account of the 'dark side' of More. . . . [He] lays out the case for a more complex, ironic construction of More's texts."-Stanley Stewart, Studies in English Literature "This . . . book is a gemstone."-Terence R. Murphy, History: Reviews of New Books "Correcting the view of Thomas More as a cold-blooded prosecutor of heresy, Martz here considers the gentle, affectionate, yet upright man pictured in Holbein's family portraits and implicit in More's prose."-Judith Fair, Theological Studies

This book analyzes and studies More's writings as well as Holbein's portraits of More and his family. Louis Martz argues that there is no foundation for reviving the ancient charge that More was a bloody persecutor of heretics, and he questions the view put forth that More suffered from an "inner fury" resulting from sexual repression and a frustrated desire to be a monk. According to Mastz, More's furious attacks against heresy in his polemical writings do not reveal his deep inner self, but are treatises done in the common style of controversy in an era of savage religious disagreements. More's polemics are uncommon only in their wit and sardonic cleverness, says Martz, and they are matched by those of Martin Luther, his only peer in this kind of vitriolic attack. Martz makes his case primarily through exploration of More's mode of writing: the Augustinian "order of the heart" displayed in some of his major works - the "Confutation of Tyndale's Answer", and "Apology", the English treatise on the Passion, the "Dialogue of Comfort", and his last work, the "De Tristitia", his meditation on the agony of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane.