SOURCE: Brownlow, F. W. “Southwell's Prose: The Second Stage.” In Robert Southwell, pp. 50-72. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996.

In this essay, Brownlow discusses Southwell's last three prose works, which he claims are more sober in tone than earlier works despite their use of similar themes and imagery.

The Triumphs Over Death

The three works considered in this chapter, The Triumphs over Death, A Short Rule of Good Life, and An Humble Supplication to Her Majesty, all date from late 1591, when Southwell had been in England more than five years. Since the style and tone of Southwell's prose varies with the subject and the recipient, one cannot really talk confidently of a development in his prose style. Nonetheless, there is a difference of tone between these last works and their predecessors. There is a purely literary exuberance in the prose of the first pieces that Southwell owed to the...