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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Contents
The Loss of Contingency | 1 |
2 The Be the Eucharist and the Logic of Protestantism | 18 |
3 Purgatory and the Value of Time | 65 |
4 The Theater of Merit | 103 |
5 Chastity and the Strumpet Fortune | 155 |
6 The Be Protestantism and Silence | 201 |
Bibliography | 219 |
Index | 243 |
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 |
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action actor Arthur Dent audience Becon Blits Caesar Calvin Calvinistic Cambridge Catholic Catholicism Christ 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 example fate father feeling fols Fortune’s Fulke Gertrude Gertrude’s Ghost God’s grief Hamlet Hamlet Studies happen heaven Hecuba Horatio human idea improvisation inner John killing King Laertes logic man’s marriage means merely merit meritorious mother nature never one’s Ophelia Oxford University Press papists particular play play’s playlet Polonius possible prayer predestination Princeton University Princeton University Press Protestant Protestantism Purgatory Reformation Renaissance repentance role scene seems sense Shakespeare Quarterly Shakespeare’s Tragic Shakespearean Tragedy soul speech strumpet Fortune suicide theater metaphor things Thomas Thomas Becon thoughts trans true truth University of Delaware whore whoredom William William Perkins William Tyndale Yale University Yale University Press York