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A ground-breaking study of the social and cultural functions of the early modern theatre. Jean Howard looks at the effects of drama and the stage on early modern culture in an exciting and eminently readable work.
The central thesis of this book is that skepticism was instrumental to the defense of orthodox religion and the development of the identity of the Church of England. Examining the presence of skepticism in non-fiction prose literature at four transitional moments in English Protestant history during which orthodoxy was challenged and revised, Melissa Caldwell argues that a skeptical mode of thinking is embedded in the literary and rhetorical choices made by English writers who straddle the project of reform and the maintenance of orthodoxy after the Reformation in England. Far from being a radical belief simply indicative of an emerging secularism, she demonstrates the varied and complex appropriations of skeptical thought in early modern England. By examining a selection of various kinds of literature-including religious polemic, dialogue, pamphlets, sermons, and treatises-produced at key moments in early modern England’s religious history, Caldwell shows how the writers under consideration capitalized on the unscripted moral space that emerged in the wake of the Reformation. The result was a new kind of discourse--and a new form of orthodoxy--that sought both to exploit and to contain the skepticism unearthed by the Reformation.
Readers of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies have long noted the absence of readily explainable motivations for some of Shakespeare’s greatest characters: why does Hamlet delay his revenge for so long? Why does King Lear choose to renounce his power? Why is Othello so vulnerable to Iago’s malice? But while many critics have chosen to overlook these omissions or explain them away, Millicent Bell demonstrates that they are essential elements of Shakespeare’s philosophy of doubt. Examining the major tragedies, Millicent Bell reveals the persistent strain of philosophical skepticism. Like his contemporary, Montaigne, Shakespeare repeatedly calls attention to the essential unknowability of our world. In a period of social, political, and religious upheaval, uncertainty hovered over matters great and small—the succession of the crown, the death of loved ones from plague, the failure of a harvest. Tumultuous social conditions raised ultimate questions for Shakespeare, Bell argues, and ultimately provoked in him a skepticism which casts shadows of existential doubt over his greatest masterpieces.
H.C. Erik Midelfort has carved out a reputation for innovative work on early modern German history, with a particular focus on the social history of ideas and religion. This collection pulls together some of his best work on the related subjects of witchcraft, the history of madness and psychology, demonology, exorcism, and the social history of religious change in early modern Europe. Several of the pieces reprinted here constitute reviews of recent scholarly literature on their topics, while others offer sharp departures from conventional wisdom. A critique of Michel Foucault’s view of the history of madness proved both stimulating but irritating to Foucault’s most faithful readers, so it is reprinted here along with a short retrospective comment by the author. Another focus of this collection is the social history of the Holy Roman Empire, where towns, peasants, and noble families developed different perceptions of the Protestant and Catholic Reformations and of the options the religious revolutions of the sixteenth century offered. Finally, this collection also brings together articles which show how Freudian psychoanalysis and academic sociology have filtered and interpreted the history of early modern Germany.
This book is an interdisciplinary study of the forms and uses of doubt in works by Homer, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Cicero, Machiavelli, Shakespeare and Montaigne. Based on close analysis of literary and philosophical texts by these important authors, Michelle Zerba argues that doubt is a defining experience in antiquity and the Renaissance, one that constantly challenges the limits of thought and representation. The wide-ranging discussion considers issues that run the gamut from tragic loss to comic bombast, from psychological collapse to skeptical dexterity and from solitary reflection to political improvisation in civic contexts and puts Greek and Roman treatments of doubt into dialogue not only with sixteenth-century texts but with contemporary works as well. Using the past to engage questions of vital concern to our time, Zerba demonstrates that although doubt sometimes has destructive consequences, it can also be conducive to tolerance, discovery and conversation across sociopolitical boundaries.
Continuing the tradition of historiographic studies, this volume provides an update on research in Reformation and early modern Europe. Written by expert scholars in the field, these eighteen essays explore the fundamental points of Reformation and early modern history in religious studies, European regional studies, and social and cultural studies. Authors review the present state of research in the field, new trends, key issues scholars are working with, and fundamental works in their subject area, including the wide range of electronic resources now available to researchers. Reformation and Early Modern Europe: A Guide to Research is a valuable resource for students and scholars of early modern Europe.
This ambitious account of skepticism's effects on major authors of England's Golden Age shows how key philosophical problems inspired literary innovations in poetry and prose. When figures like Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert of Cherbury, Cavendish, Marvell and Milton question theories of language, degrees of knowledge and belief, and dwell on the uncertainties of perception, they forever change English literature, ushering it into a secular mode. While tracing a narrative arc from medieval nominalism to late seventeenth-century taste, the book explores the aesthetic pleasures and political quandaries induced by skeptical doubt. It also incorporates modern philosophical views of skepticism: those of Stanley Cavell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Roland Barthes, and Hans Blumenberg, among others. The book thus contributes to interdisciplinary studies of philosophy and literature as well as to current debates about skepticism as a secularizing force, fostering civil liberties and religious freedoms.
This dissertation explores the intersections of the skeptical "tradition" with social configurations that cannot be adequately understood within the history of ideas. The project looks at elite and popular social practices that are informed by radical modes of doubt or hterodoxy. Three sites of skepticism are explored: 1) Shakesperean Tragedy; 2) the Northumberland circle (focusing on Thomas Harriot) and Christopher Marlow; and 3) Reginald Scot, "subaltern" practices of witchcraft and magic, and state-formation. The first chapter tackles the vexed position of witchcraft, magic and cunning folk wisdom in connection with the Elizabethan state. The examination of the Elizabethan skeptic Reginald Scot shows how his so-called "rational" or proto-enlightenment thought was enmeshed in the formation of the Protestant state. The second chapter examines a field of convergence between two alleged atheists, Thomas Harriot and Christopher Marlowe. Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Harriot had an acute knowledge of diverse practices of skepticism, magic, and occult science. Such ideological and intellectual affinities (representations of skeptical and/or occult scientific practices and the practices in the laboratory and at sea) were enabled by the equivocal nature of state power and by challenges to authority in Reformation discourse. The third chapter examines Elizabethan drama and emphasizes the dialectical relation of elite and non-elite cultures in William Shakspeare's Hamlet. In this play, skepticism not only functions as a Montaignean (and Pyrrhonist) self-reflexivity, but it also deploys a materialist and carnivalesque use of "the body." Skepticism, then, can operate as a plebian expression of social levelling and of conscience. The final chapter examines many of the problems in Classical and Renaissance skepticism as they appear in William Shakespear's King Lear: the role of sense-perception in obtaining knowledge (the problem of perspectivism), the position of the gods, the operation of custom in determining morality and adjudicating truth-claims, and the (de)valuation of reason. A short epilogue suggests that King Lear remains "our contemporary."
Presents a two-volume A to Z reference on English authors from the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, providing information about major figures, key schools and genres, biographical information, author publications and some critical analyses.