Hamlet, Protestantism, and the Mourning of Contingency: Not to BeBuilding on current scholarly interest in the religious dimensions of the play, this study shows how Shakespeare uses Hamlet to comment on the Calvinistic Protestantism predominant around 1600. By considering the play's inner workings against the religious ideas of its time, John Curran explores how Shakespeare portrays in this work a completely deterministic universe in the Calvinist mode, and, Curran argues, exposes the disturbing aspects of Calvinism. By rendering a Catholic Prince Hamlet caught in a Protestant world which consistently denies him his aspirations for a noble life, Shakespeare is able in this play, his most theologically engaged, to delineate the differences between the two belief systems, but also to demonstrate the consequences of replacing the old religion so completely with the new. |
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... asthe ideasof this great man arewont todowith anyonelucky enough to encounter them; infact, giventhat his remarks onthe centrality inHamlet ofthe conflict between Catholic and Protestant forms of religiosity were hatched overadecade ago ...
... Asthe play shows,from Calvinistic Protestantism itfollows that in truth we aretotally helpless and totally constrained to move in one and only onepath inlife. ThroughoutActs I–IV Hamlet struggles against this truthand against ...
... asthe Eucharist, purgatory, merit, repentance, marriage, casuistry, and providence.It isaclash Protestantism is bound to win, but only in a Pyrrhic victory where weare prompted to mourn for the loser. Thecommon thread running through ...
... asthe playcareers onward to debaseand finally destroy him; impelled forward, he comeson, unstoppably rushed towardhisfixed endpoint, andthe thundering he mistakenlyreads as sanctioning him merely heraldsthe dark eventsunstoppably about ...
... asthe previous see O'Connell, Idolatrous Eye, 103–6. 29 Fulke Greville, Poems and Dramas of Fulke Greville vol. 2, ed. Geoffrey Bullough (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1939), Mustapha, IV.iv.153, IV.iv.181, Alaham, I.i.23.For datesof ...
Contents
TheLoss of Contingency 2TheBe the Eucharist and the Logic of Protestantism | |
4The Theater of Merit 5 Chastity andthe Strumpet Fortune 6 The BeProtestantism and Silence | |
Index | |
Other editions - View all
Hamlet, Protestantism, and the Mourning of Contingency: Not to Be John E. Curran Jr Limited preview - 2016 |
Hamlet, Protestantism, and the Mourning of Contingency: Not to Be John E. Curran Jr Limited preview - 2016 |
Hamlet, Protestantism, and the Mourning of Contingency: Not to be John E. Curran Limited preview - 2007 |