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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... 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 ...
... the Church fromthe foundation of the world—to thebody of the Elect. The Reformation understood itselfas a humanitywide attack on ecclesiastical hypocrisy about grace, and regarded the sacraments as hypocritical“works.” Tojudge bythe ...
... a never ending punishment oftheOld Adam's sinandgrieving over human imperfection and depravity—not buyingyour way outof Purgatory. Hisassault on the sacramental system elaborated from the thirteenth century onward offeredto replace ...
... at severalremoves from faith in the meritsof Christ)—precipitates theReformation. AtTrent the Church pronounces anathemaon Protestants' objections: you must believe sacraments arethe vehicles ofsalvation,not justthesigns. They don't ...
... a persistent cleaning upof thehuman act.Ceremonies inthe drama renegotiate the cathartic function, whenever priestcraft migrates from the ecclesiasticalstageto theatre's secular one. Ophelia's obsequiesare aritesans celebration,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 |