In Drama and the Death of God, John Parker argues that the secularity often associated with Shakespeare inspired a variety of performances going back to antiquity. Scripture presupposes, even needs, the existence of a worldly sphere inimical to faith: known as the saeculum, this finite domain of appetite and unbelief invited both condemnation and celebration throughout medieval Christendom, as exemplified by the songs and plays of the Carmina Burana. After the tenth century, Christians routinely impersonated unbelievers in music dramas connected to the high holidays so that they might question biblical truths, especially the authenticity of miracles. The church generated by this means a vision of the godless world that modernity stepped into. After the English Reformation, when Europe's first commercial theaters arose on ruined monastic estates, players continued to showcase how divine intervention could be staged by humans in the absence of God. King Lear in particular explores the ancient proposition that the saeculum holds no inherent meaning and is capable of generating only pseudomiraculous spectacles to salve the ache of existence.
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Index
LiteratureTable of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Note on Texts and Translations
- Abbreviations
- Introduction: Unbelief, Secularity, Secularization
- Chapter 1. The Birth of Unbelief
- Chapter 2. Egypt and the Invention of the Saeculum
- Chapter 3. The Secularization of the Liturgy
- Chapter 4. The Disenchantment of Astrology
- Chapter 5. King Lear and the Copernican Revolution
- Chapter 6. Medicine and the Secularization of Miracles
- Epilogue: Secularization After Shakespeare
- Acknowledgments
- Index
- Copyright
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Yes, you can access Drama and the Death of God by John Parker in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & Literary Criticism of Shakespeare. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.