An Accidental Pope: Essays on Frederick Rolfe’s Hadrian the Seventh(Politics, Literature, & Film)

The novel Hadrian the Seventh has received critical attention in the past, there remain significant gaps in the scholarship regarding Frederick Rolfe's novel which this collection of essays aims to fill, particularly in terms of its political, religious, philosophical, and literary aspects. The topics discussed include the novel's place in literary history, both in terms of bridging Decadence with modernism as well as drawing on the Victorian literary tradition inspiring later authors, as well as its genre, offering new perspectives, casting Frederick Rolfe's novel as a humorous book in the Decadent tradition, and engaging in camp aesthetics. Political issues, frequently connected with religious matters owing to the book's subject matter, are represented by contributions discussing the role of the Catholic Church in the 20th century, engaging in discussion with Leo XIII's conciliatory, modernist approach. The issues addressed include the tension between temporal and spiritual power, and the Vatican's role in international policymaking. Some chapters focus on specific scenes, such as the conclave and the Pope's visit to St. Andrew's College provide insight into the protagonist's dislike of established Vatican politics.

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents Preface Introduction 1. Rolfe and the Scots College Revisited: Literary Appropriation and Anticipation Philip Healy (Oxford University, UK) 2. Ridiculous Sublime Decadence: Frederick Rolfe and the Queer Comedy of Aristocratic Detachment Richard A. Kaye (City University of New York, USA) 3. Frederick Rolfe and the Papal Conclave Frederic J. Baumgartner (retired, American Catholic Historical Association and professor emeritus at Virginia Tech, USA) 4. Succeeding Leo: Hadrian the Seventh as Catholic Social Thinking David P. Deavel (University of St. Thomas, USA) 5. George Arthur Rose's “Individualistic Altruism” in Frederick Rolfe's Hadrian the Seventh Miroslaw Aleksander Miernik (University of Warsaw, Poland) 6. The Thames Flows into the Tiber: Hadrian the Seventh in Italy Luca Fumagalli (Radio Spada, Italy) Appendix 1: A Key to Hadrian the Seventh Robert Scoble (Independent Scholar, Australia) Appendix 2: Memories of Palazzo Sforza Cesarini, Genzano di Roma Miroslaw Aleksander Miernik (University of Warsaw, Poland)

About the Author :
Miroslaw Aleksander Miernik, University of Warsaw, Poland

Review :
This collection will introduce the peculiar charms of Hadrian the Seventh to a new generation of readers. It offers exciting perspectives on the intellectual, religious and historical contexts of Frederick Rolfe's eccentric masterpiece. The book demonstrates Rolfe's playful engagement with literary Decadence, his complex interrogation of nineteenth-century political thought, and his fraught negotiation of same-sex desire. It also illuminates the novel's tangled relationship with Rolfe's fractious personal life, uncovering for the first time the identity of the targets of his notoriously biting satire. Frederick Rolfe's Hadrian the Seventh is a landmark work in the history of the novel. Deeply idiosyncratic, it holds an important place in the transition from decadence to modernism and in the Catholic literary tradition. Despite that importance, strong scholarship on the novel is surprisingly sparse. This excellent collection is therefore a landmark, its impressive roster of contributors placing the novel in its many contexts, including biographical, formal/literary historical, theological and church historical, political, and sketching out its reception history. In addition an appendix offers an invaluable 'key' to the novel identifying the historical personages depicted or referred to. It will be a volume of great interest to readers of Rolfe, and of the twentieth-century novel more generally. Frederick Rolfe is known for his recondite erudition and reactionary remembrance of things past. An Accidental Pope reveals him anew as a kind of literary caricaturist who, as an outsider and convert, perceived and amplified the perverse aspects of contemporary Catholic culture. His life and works are, thereby, shown to stand at a significant intersection between the histories of modernism in literature, queer community and religious faith.