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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... of Protestantism 3 Purgatory and the Value of Time 4The Theater of Merit 5 Chastity andthe Strumpet Fortune 6 The Be,Protestantism, and Silence Bibliography Index Foreword James Nohrnberg For the ancients also calledlife a purgatory,
... theater” fromwhich they cannot—except histrionically!—declare their independence. Can autarchic Renaissance man,whichFaustus and Hamletinitially seem to presuppose, actually retain any power ofexercising awill ofhis own?Oraresuch ...
... theater seat reserved forthe gods. Theysee us asmiserable flies—or samphiregatherers who manage to eke out subsistencein anecological nicheonthe edge ofanabyss. When Hamlethandles Cain's jawbone “that did the first murder,” hisviewpoint ...
... Theater in Early Modern England(New York:Oxford University Press, 2000), 132–35, 144. Forthe argumentthat Shakespeare takesa mainstream Protestant stance whichcondemns Hamlet, see ArthurMcGee, The Elizabethan Hamlet(New Haven: Yale ...
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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 | |
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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 |