1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910825479103321

Autore

Cox John D. <1945->

Titolo

The devil and the sacred in English drama, 1350-1642 / / John D. Cox

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge, U.K. ; ; New York, : Cambridge University Press, 2000

ISBN

1-107-12136-1

1-280-15928-6

0-511-11897-X

0-511-01724-3

0-511-15118-7

0-511-31052-8

0-511-48327-9

0-511-04668-5

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (x, 257 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Disciplina

822.009/351

Soggetti

English drama - Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600 - History and criticism

Devil in literature

English drama - 17th century - History and criticism

English drama - To 1500 - History and criticism

Christian drama, English - History and criticism

Christianity and literature - England - History

Good and evil in literature

Holy, The, in literature

Evil in literature

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

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 -- App. Devil Plays in English, 1350-1642.

Sommario/riassunto

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.