The text of Epistle of Robert Southwell unto His Father is populated by bodies: the body politic that is the omnipresent Elizabethan state, the body of the Southwell family on behalf of whom Southwell claims to make his appeal, the body of the Catholic Church from which Richard Southwell is presently separated, and most significantly the body of Christ to which the young priest would have his father reunited. The detachment of father and son from these various bodies, and consequently from one another, is the reason for the letter’s existence as well as the foundation of its arguments and the source of its considerable drama. This essay argues that the artful persuasiveness of the Epistle lies in the simultaneity of its rhetorical appeals to both a private and public audience, appeals which are strengthened by the author’s awareness of the divided bodies he addresses, and his subsequent decision to deploy a provocative interplay between the actions of remembering and dismembering throughout his text.

中文翻译：

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“陷入同样的​​危险”：罗伯特·索斯韦尔 (Robert Southwell) 给父亲的书信中被记住和肢解的身体的力量

罗伯特·索斯韦尔 (Robert Southwell) 写给他父亲的书信中充满了身体：政治身体即无所不在的伊丽莎白时代，索斯韦尔家族的身体，索斯韦尔声称代表其提出上诉，天主教会的身体是理查德·索斯韦尔目前与世隔绝，最重要的是，年轻的牧师想让他的父亲与基督的身体重聚。父子与这些不同的身体以及因此彼此之间的分离，是这封信存在的原因，也是其论点的基础和可观的戏剧性的来源。这篇文章认为，这封书信巧妙的说服力在于其修辞同时吸引了私人和公共观众，