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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... doctrinal Oedipus complex. Ernst Jones' Hamlet and Oedipus argues that what is buriedin Shakespeare's play, inplain sight, is an exploded viewof the famous complex: the beloved but displaced father guiltily haunting Hamlet should ...
... doctrines about thesacraments emerged asones Christians must reckon with. Whether geographic or apparitional (cf. Gregory, Dialogues IV.40), Purgatory explained how sins can be forgiven, without one's having completed satisfaction for ...
... doctrine of Purgatory, Foxe's Latimer asserts, “Debts have notbeen paid: restitutionof evilgotten lands and goodshave not been made; Christian people...are neglected andsufferedto perish; last wills [are]unfulfilled and broken ...
... doctrine of Predestination addresses soulsearching toentirely different questions, more akinto an examination ofone's chances or spiritual horoscope.It is the stars' influence, surely, whereby young Hamlet was bornon the day old Hamlet ...
... doctrine if seen inall its fullness. Itwas a cost Shakespeare himself, who gave to noother play the senseof necessity we find inthis one, was unwilling to pay. In Hamlethe tells us why. Inmaking this argument, that Shakespeare with ...
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 |