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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... offers for ourown culture'sfascination with theplay: namely, our constitutional unreadiness (or sheer inability) to bury its theological dead. Preface and Acknowledgements This project was bornout of frustration.The feeling.
... feeling ultimately began with my finalyearsas anundergraduate at Williamand Mary, where, as partof a burgeoning fascinationwith Renaissance literature,I gained fromProfessor Fehrenbach andProfessor Savage the beginnings of ...
... feels,he is on atrack bound inexorably forone and only one destination. This is clear even here with his two schoolfellows. Whatever his strategy might beherefor appearing mad and however wittyhe might seem in his repartee, the scene ...
... feelings mean nothing was hard to swallow, and he was simplynot amenable to it.And soHamlet, fully demonstrating this hardness andinviting us todislike it, in a way serves the playwrightto justify the rest of hiswork; with Hamlet, we ...
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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 |