Inside the Mind of Thomas Cromwell: The Fashioning of the Self and of Tudor Politics in Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies

Details

Supervisors

Latre, Guido

Faculty

Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres

Degree label

Master [120] en langues et lettres modernes, orientation germaniques

Abstract

enEven if a lot of works have been written about the Tudor era and Henry VIII, very few of them study Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s right-hand man. The few works that are interested in him in most cases only focus on his career, talking about aspects such as his knowledge in finance and his influence on England’s religion. It seems nobody ever showed interest in his private life, until Hilary Mantel wrote her two books, Wolf Hall (2009) and Bring Up the Bodies (2012). The aim of this master dissertation was not just to demonstrate that Mantel’s Cromwell understands the art of shaping the self and the world around him. This aspect of his personality had already been studied by others. However, my analysis of Mantel’s Cromwell novels made it possible to add more elements to the picture. The theme of fashioning the self and the world was reinterpreted in the context of the Renaissance, and this dissertation investigated how Mantel’s concept of the historical novel contributes to a convincing portrait of that crucial period in history. The role of narratological techniques in the representation of the Renaissance has also been analysed for both novels. The narrative perspective gives the reader access to Cromwell’s innermost thoughts and feelings, which gives him or her the opportunity to acquire a deep understanding of the main character as a shaper and sometimes a manipulator of destinies, both on a personal and a political level. In addition to an analysis of the narrative techniques, the criteria Greenblatt describes in Renaissance Self-Fashioning have been applied to demonstrate how Cromwell’s Renaissance mind works. His ability to shape his self and the world around him has also been demonstrated. It appeared that many travels and jobs along the years have allowed him to construct himself.