“The Spirit of Martyrdom is Over”: Irony, Communication, and Indifference in Daniel Defoe’s The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (1702)

Abstract

Questions of interpretation have dominated the reading of The Shortest Way with the Dissenters since its initial publication in 1702. Claiming to be the work of an extremist Anglican clergyman, the prose satire called for persecuting those who did not conform to the established Church of England. Because it was printed anonymously, many of Daniel Defoe’s initial readers failed to realize that the pamphlet’s author, a Dissenter, did not actually espouse its incendiary argument. When it was revealed that he was the author, Defoe insisted that the pamphlet was not meant to be taken straight. It was a work of irony. As is well known, the authorities read the text much differently, charging Defoe with seditious libel and sentencing him to the pillory. Although interpretive differences no longer bear such high stakes, literary scholars continue to disagree concerning how best to interpret The Shortest Way. For some scholars, the issue is how, or to what extent, irony operates in the satire, whereas others remain skeptical whether irony can be found in the satire at all. Scholars who would otherwise disagree tend to find common ground in the assumption that Defoe had little in common with the bombastic priest he aimed to expose. The present essay reframes the conversation surrounding The Shortest Way by challenging this traditional assumption. It does so by examining the satire in light of the changes taking place in the discourse of religion, particularly as these changes appeared in the controversy surrounding occasional conformity. During the Restoration period, the practice of occasional conformity developed as a work-around to the Test Act requiring officeholders to prove their conformity to the established church. Provided that the Dissenter could attest to have taken the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in a parish church, it did not matter that he continued to attend his nonconformist meeting house. This practice of communicating, or receiving communion, in different churches raised serious issues for both Defoe and the high churchmen he sought to expose. The problem of communication, of negating the distinction between the parish church and the meeting-house, becomes evident in Defoe’s speaker’s remark that “the Spirit of Martyrdom is over” (The Shortest Way 106). According to Defoe’s high-church Anglican