Voicing the Commonplace: Emblem, Interpretation and Civil Society in William Bullein’s Dialogue Against the Fever Pestilence

Résumé En

This essay contends that the Dialogue not only holds Bullein’s society to judgment, but also actively attempts to awaken good citizenship in its readers. Focusing on an aspect of the Dialogue that has hitherto not been examined-namely its extensive descriptions of what were known as emblems or «speaking pictures» Griffiths argue that these contribute to his picture of a diseased society and form a means by which Bullein proposes the disease might be cured. Encouraging all readers to active interpretation, the «pictures» attempt to establish a renewed sense of community that extends beyond the fictional realm into the real. Ultimately, however, this project falters. With the appearance of the stock morality figure Death, who summons Civis in the final episode, communal good and individual salvation prove after all to be very different matters, and the Dialogue ends by exhorting its readers to exercise their interpretative skills not on human productions, but on the word of God alone.