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Early modern drama is steeped in biblical language, imagery and stories. This collection examines the pervasive presence of scripture on the early modern stage. Exploring plays by writers such as Shakespeare, Marlowe, Middleton, and Webster, the contributors show how theatre offers a site of public and communal engagement with the Bible.
List of contents
Acknowledgements List of Contributors Introduction: Situating the Bible in Early Modern Drama; A.Streete PART I: REPRESENTING THE BIBLE IN EARLY MODERN DRAMA: MATERIAL AND VERBAL CONTEXTS Enter The Book: Reading the Bible on the Early Modern Stage; M.Davies Measuring up to Nebuchadnezzar: Biblical Presences in Shakespeare's Tragicomedies; H.Wilcox Fatal Visions: The Image as Actor in Early Modern Tragedy; P.Canning PART II: POLITICAL THEOLOGY, THE BIBLE AND DRAMA Political Theology in George Buchanan's Baptistes ; D.Cavanagh The Ethics of Pardoning in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure ; P.Cefalu Punishing Perjury in Love's Labour's Lost ; J.Hudson PART III: BIBLICAL READINGS ON STAGE: PULPIT, HOUSEHOLD AND POLITICAL CONTROVERSY 'They repented at the preachyng of Ionas: and beholde, a greater then Ionas is here': A Looking Glass for London and England , Hosea and the Destruction of Jerusalem; B.Groves Marital Infidelity and Christian Self-Sacrifice in Thomas Heywood's How a Good Man May Choose a Good Wife from a Bad ; E.McManus Reading the White Devil in Thomas Adams and John Webster; E.Rhatigan Situating Political and Biblical Authority in Massinger and Field's The Fatal Dowry ; A.Streete Afterword; H.Hamlin Bibliography Index
About the author
PATRICIA CANNING Postdoctoral Teaching Assistant in the School of English, Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland
DERMOT CAVANAGH Senior Lecturer in English, Department of English Literature, University of Edinburgh, UK
PAUL CEFALU Associate Professor of English, Department of English, Lafayette College, USA
MICHAEL DAVIES Senior Lecturer in English, School of English, University of Liverpool, UK
BEATRICE GROVES Lecturer in Renaissance English Literature, Trinity College, University of Oxford, UK
HANNIBAL HAMLIN Associate Professor of English, Department of English, Ohio State University, USA
JUDITH HUDSON PhD candidate at Birkbeck College, University of London, UK
EMER MCMANUS PhD candidate, School of English, University College, Dublin, Ireland
EMMA RHATIGAN Lecturer in English, School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, University of Sheffield, UK
HELEN WILCOX Professor of English, Bangor University, Wales
Summary
Early modern drama is steeped in biblical language, imagery and stories. This collection examines the pervasive presence of scripture on the early modern stage. Exploring plays by writers such as Shakespeare, Marlowe, Middleton, and Webster, the contributors show how theatre offers a site of public and communal engagement with the Bible.
Additional text
"This confident and seductive collection of essays is alive with a sense of the transformative power of performance. By inviting us to think about the Bible as stage property, philosophical concept, and as linguistic intervention, it establishes a bold new scholarly landscape for understanding early modern material, spiritual, and theatrical cultures." Julie Sanders, University of Nottingham, UK
"At a time when it is fashionable to write and read religion out of, or at least minimize its impact on, the culture of earlier epochs, this study stands as a useful corrective, reminding us of the Bible's elevated position in early modern literature and drama,
and its capacity to navigate between the two." Philip Major, Modern Language Review
Report
"This confident and seductive collection of essays is alive with a sense of the transformative power of performance. By inviting us to think about the Bible as stage property, philosophical concept, and as linguistic intervention, it establishes a bold new scholarly landscape for understanding early modern material, spiritual, and theatrical cultures." Julie Sanders, University of Nottingham, UK
"At a time when it is fashionable to write and read religion out of, or at least minimize its impact on, the culture of earlier epochs, this study stands as a useful corrective, reminding us of the Bible's elevated position in early modern literature and drama,
and its capacity to navigate between the two." Philip Major, Modern Language Review
