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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Page 18
... common " stream of human existence , a meaningless phenomenon replayed over and over with an overwhelming sameness , says Claudius , " From the first corse till he that died today " ( I.ii.98 , 105 ) . It is at this moment when Claudius ...
... common " stream of human existence , a meaningless phenomenon replayed over and over with an overwhelming sameness , says Claudius , " From the first corse till he that died today " ( I.ii.98 , 105 ) . It is at this moment when Claudius ...
Page 42
Not to be John E. Curran. " common , " and thus " common " in the sense we used at the head of this chapter : the way things undeniably are . That these people should strike us as common , ordinary , is therefore terribly significant . A ...
Not to be John E. Curran. " common , " and thus " common " in the sense we used at the head of this chapter : the way things undeniably are . That these people should strike us as common , ordinary , is therefore terribly significant . A ...
Page 131
... common revenger , ridiculously so . And even if we consider the realm of the conceptually possible , and think on a revenge which while not proportionally spectacular would be somehow outside the common and thus capable of something ...
... common revenger , ridiculously so . And even if we consider the realm of the conceptually possible , and think on a revenge which while not proportionally spectacular would be somehow outside the common and thus capable of something ...
Contents
The Be the Eucharist and the Logic of Protestantism | 18 |
Purgatory and the Value of Time | 65 |
The Theater of Merit | 103 |
Copyright | |
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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 |
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action actually answer appears audience become believe called Calvin Calvinistic Cambridge Catholic Catholicism cause Christian Claudius comes common concept conscience contingency course dead death determinism display doctrine Drama dream Early effect effort Elizabethan England English example existence expression fact faith fall father feeling Fortune Gertrude Ghost God's Hamlet happen heaven hope Horatio human idea imagine inner John killing kind King lack Literature living logic London Mark marriage matters means merely merit mind move nature never Ophelia Oxford particular performance person play Polonius possible prayer Princeton proportion Protestant Protestantism providence Purgatory Quarterly question reason Reformation remains Renaissance revenge Richard Robert role scene seems sense Shakespeare soliloquy soul speech Studies tell theater things Thomas thoughts Tragedy true truth trying turn University Press whore York