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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... Calvinists for trusting the will is free, by Catholics for denying sinners any chance of reformation. Damned if you trust salvation by works and the sacramental order, damned if you don't trust God's providence. Damned if you insist you ...
... Calvinists for trusting the will is free, by Catholics for denying sinners any chance of reformation. Damned if you trust salvation by works and the sacramental order, damned if you don't trust God's providence. Damned if you insist you ...
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... Calvinistic, obsignatory views, widely found among English Reformers (Coverdale, Latimer, Ridley, Cranmer, Hooper ... Calvinists reply. “Angels and ministers of grace defend us!” Hamlet exclaims at the outset—would they could! If Hamlet ...
... Calvinistic, obsignatory views, widely found among English Reformers (Coverdale, Latimer, Ridley, Cranmer, Hooper ... Calvinists reply. “Angels and ministers of grace defend us!” Hamlet exclaims at the outset—would they could! If Hamlet ...
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... Calvinist universe that allows for neither the alteration of outcomes nor the possibility of earning redemption through admirable, self-approbatory human endeavor: a universe that only permits predetermined, inevitable necessities and ...
... Calvinist universe that allows for neither the alteration of outcomes nor the possibility of earning redemption through admirable, self-approbatory human endeavor: a universe that only permits predetermined, inevitable necessities and ...
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... Calvinistic slant, many of its emphases, especially humility and iconoclasm, are appealing to me, and I dare say we in the United States could benefit in our collective consciousness from a dose of them, as we much too easily fall these ...
... Calvinistic slant, many of its emphases, especially humility and iconoclasm, are appealing to me, and I dare say we in the United States could benefit in our collective consciousness from a dose of them, as we much too easily fall these ...
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... Calvinistic Protestantism dominant at this time and in effect required of law to be believed by all Englishmen. In my reading, the humanistic attitude Hamlet articulates in this scene is consonant with the basic philosophical position ...
... Calvinistic Protestantism dominant at this time and in effect required of law to be believed by all Englishmen. In my reading, the humanistic attitude Hamlet articulates in this scene is consonant with the basic philosophical position ...
Contents
Purgatory and the Value of Time | |
The Theater of Merit | |
Chastity and the Strumpet Fortune | |
The Be Protestantism and Silence | |
Bibliography | |
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 Limited preview - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
action actor Arthur Dent audience Becon Calvin Calvinistic Catholic Catholicism Christ’s Christian Clarendon Press Claudius Claudius’s common revenger concept conscience contingency dead death display doctrine Drama dream Early Modern England empty overstatement English Recusant Literature English Renaissance example father feeling fols Fortune’s Fulke Gertrude Ghost grief Hamlet Hamlet Studies happen heaven Hecuba Horatio human idea improvisation John John of Salisbury killing King Laertes logic Mark Thornton marriage means merely merit meritorious mother nature never one’s Ophelia Oxford University Press papists Parker Society person’s Peter play play’s Polonius possible prayer Princeton University Princeton University Press Protestant Protestantism Purgatory Reformation repentance Richard role Routledge scene seems sense sexual Shakespeare Quarterly Shakespeare’s Tragic Shakespearean Tragedy soliloquy soul speech strumpet Fortune suicide theater metaphor things Thomas Thomas Becon thoughts trans true truth whore whoredom William William Perkins William Tyndale Yale University Yale University Press York