The Devil and the Sacred in English Drama, 1350–1642

This book, first published in 2000, is a history of stage devils in early English drama.

John D. Cox (Author)

9780521790901, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 October 2000

268 pages, 3 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.57 kg

"If you wanted to see a God-like figure nonetheless, the players are glad to provide, for a price, a distant, tantalizing glimpse." Christianity and Literature

John Cox tells the intriguing story of stage devils from their earliest appearance in English plays to the closing of the theatres by parliamentary order in 1642. The book represents a major revision of E. K. Chambers' ideas of stage devils in The Medieval Stage (1903), arguing that this is not a history of gradual secularization, as scholarship has maintained for the last century, but rather that stage devils were profoundly shaped from the outset by the assumptions of sacred drama and retained this shape virtually unchanged until the advent of permanent commercial theatres near London. The book spans both medieval and Renaissance drama including the medieval Mystery cycles on the one hand, through to plays by Greene, Marlowe, Shakespeare (1 and 2 Henry VI), Jonson, Middleton and Davenant. An appendix lists all known devil plays in English from the beginning to 1642.

List of illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Stage devils and oppositional thinking
2. The devil and the sacred in the English mystery plays
3. Stage devils and sacramental community in non-cycle plays
4. Stage devils and early social satire
5. Protestant devils and the new community
6. The devils of Dr Faustus
7. Reacting to Marlowe
8. The devil and the sacred on the Shakespearean stage: theatre and belief
9. Traditional morality and magical thinking
10. New directions
Appendix: devil plays in English, 1350–1642
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB], Theatre studies [AN]