Protestantism and Drama in Early Modern England

This book provides a reassessment of the relationship between Reformed theology and early modern literature, with analysis of key writers and thinkers.

Adrian Streete (Author)

9781107402775, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 11 August 2011

310 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.42 kg

'Streete's methodology … is remarkably fruitful and compelling. … Protestantism and Drama offers a more complete and nuanced picture of the early modern subject than has been offered before.' Renaissance Quarterly

Containing detailed readings of plays by Shakespeare, Marlowe and Middleton, as well as poetry and prose, this book provides a major historical and critical reassessment of the relationship between early modern Protestantism and drama. Examining the complex and painful shift from late medieval religious culture to a society dominated by the ideas of the Reformers, Adrian Streete presents a fresh understanding of Reformed theology and the representation of early modern subjectivity. Through close analysis of major thinkers such as Augustine, William of Ockham, Erasmus, Luther and Calvin, the book argues for the profoundly Christological focus of Reformed theology and explores how this manifests itself in early modern drama. Moving beyond questions of authorial 'belief', Streete assesses Elizabethan and Jacobean drama's engagement with the challenges of the Reformation.

Introduction
Part I: 1. Christ, subjectivity and representation in early modern culture
2. Locating the subject: Erasmus and Luther
3. Representing the subject: Calvin, Christ and identity
4. Perception and fantasy in early modern Protestant discourse
Part II: 5. Anti-drama, anti-Church: debating the early modern theatre
6. Consummatum est: Calvinist exegesis, mimesis and Doctor Faustus
7. Shakespeare on Golgotha: political typology in Richard II
8. Mimesis, resistance and iconoclasm: resituating The Revenger's Tragedy
Afterword.

Subject Areas: Theology [HRLB], History of religion [HRAX], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], Literary studies: general [DSB], Literature: history & criticism [DS], Literature & literary studies [D]