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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 63
... death, since fear of the inevitable is vain; and he will see nothing evil in death. Pietro Pomponazzi, On the Immortality of the Soul, ch. xiv InT.S. Eliot'sOn Elizabethan Drama, quotations from Marston's Antonio's Revenge illustrate ...
... horror,with the fullmeasure of repression whichseparates his infantilefrom hispresent state. ...Theidea has passed through myhead that thesame thing may lieattherootof Hamlet. eternal death, but the redemption I thought of could never.
... Death of Beloved Persons.” Nosuch dreamappears inHamlet itself,“yet dreams advise,” and, properly explicated, reembody spectersthat coulda tale unfold. The Ghost's revelations have hairraising effects like Job's “visions of thenight ...
... death, even while amendmentby fire proceeds? Are theyreversible bythe living's prayersor suffrages onthe dead's behalf? Where, if it's literallya place, is Purgatory's site? Isitsfire actual, orafigure for something else ...
... death, but the redemption I thought of could never reach me ... though Ihad some intervals of quiet,I was still faroff fromtrue peace of conscience; for, whenever I descended into myself, or raised mymind to [God], extreme terror seized ...
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 |