ABSTRACT
In creating her history Askew did not perceive herself as a mere clerk of the court transcribing the series of interrogations to which she was subjected. Even a first reading of the Examinations reveals that this is political and theological theater, made vividly dramatic by Askew's attention to the details of dialogue, her frequent irony, her satirical characterization of the inquisitors, and the development of herself as the narrative persona and chief actor. Subsequent read ings reveal the care with which Askew re-created the dialogue be tween herself and her judges in order to undermine their power as
Catholics and men and to establish her own authority as Reformer and woman. Wherever Askew supplies a text for her questioners, whether in direct or indirect speech, she casts herself as an unco operative reader of that text, which she then alters and appropriates for her own purposes. She designs each successive dialogue to carry out both the Reformers' essential task of discrediting Catholic doctrine and the woman writer's search for an authoritative voice. By choosing dialogue Askew is able to reform the relationship be tween the powerless and the powerful, whether as the accused heretic facing her inquisitors or as a lone woman facing male au thorities of church and state. For her, as for later women writers, the persecution of her faith and of her sex revealed the same un christian attitude.
