Tragedy as Philosophy in the Reformation World

Description

Tragedy as Philosophy in the Reformation World examines how sixteenth- and seventeenth-century poets, theologians, and humanist critics turned to tragedy to understand providence and agencies human and divine in the crucible of the Reformation. Rejecting familiar assumptions about tragedy, vital figures like Philipp Melanchthon, David Pareus, Lodovico Castelvetro, John Rainolds, and Daniel Heinsius developed distinctly philosophical ideas of tragedy, irreducible to drama or performance, inextricable from rhetoric, dialectic, and metaphysics. In its proximity to philosophy, tragedy afforded careful readers crucial insight into causality, probability, necessity, and the terms of human affect and action. With these resources at hand, poets and critics produced a series of daring and influential theses on tragedy between the 1550s and the 1630s, all directly related to pressing Reformation debates concerning providence, predestination, faith, and devotional practice. Under the influence of Aristotle's Poetics, they presented tragedy as an exacting forensic tool, enabling attentive readers to apprehend totality. And while some poets employed tragedy to render sacred history palpable with new energy and urgency, others marshalled a precise philosophical notion of tragedy directly against spectacle and stage-playing, endorsing anti-theatrical theses on tragedy inflected by the antique Poetics. In other words, this work illustrates the degree to which some of the influential poets and critics in the period, emphasized philosophical precision at the expense of--even to the exclusion of--dramatic presentation. In turn, the work also explores the impact of scholarly debates on more familiar works of vernacular tragedy, illustrating how William Shakespeare's Hamlet and John Milton's 1671 poems take shape in conversation with philosophical and philological investigations of tragedy. Tragedy as Philosophy in the Reformation World demonstrates how Reformation took shape in poetic as well as theological and political terms while simultaneously exposing the importance of tragedy to the history of philosophy. Cover Tragedy as Philosophy in the Reformation World Copyright Dedication Acknowledgments Note on the Text Contents INTRODUCTION [PROLOGUS] Introduction: Tragedy’s Intellectual Resources REFORMATION AND TRAGEDY, c.1550 ERASMUS AND THE RESOURCES OF TRAGEDY QUID HAC IMAGINE LUGUBRIUS COGITARI POTEST?: MELANCHTHON ON TRAGEDY TRAGOEDIA SACRA A PHILOSOPHICAL POETICS DRAMATIS PERSONAE PART I: [PROTASIS]: TRAGEDY AND THEOLOGY 1: Reformation Tragedy and Revelation David Pareus’ Tragic Typology DAVID PAREUS, ORIGEN, AND GENRE TRAGIC STRUCTURE AND RECOGNITION IN PAMMACHIUS AND THE TRAGEDIA CHRISTUS TRIUMPHANS AND THE TRAGEDY OF ANTICHRIST “THE TRAGIC FORM OF EACH VISION” TRAGIC REPETITION TYPOLOGY AS PROPHECY 2: Lodovico Castelvetro’s Heterodox Poetics: Tragic Accommodation HERESY IN MODENA CASTELVETRO’S CONDEMNATION THE HETERODOXY OF THE POETICA TRAGIC FORM IN THE POETICA TRAGEDY AND ACCOMMODATION 3: John Rainolds, Hamlet, and the Anti-Theatrical Aristotle SPECIES OF FICTION: “THEATER-SIGHTS & STAGE-PLAYES” AND MENDACIA OFFICIOSA RAINOLDS AND OXFORD ARISTOTELIANISM SPECTACLE AND RECITATION ENTER REYNALDO, MENDAX “THE PLAY’S THE THING” PART II: [EPITASIS]: TRAGEDY AND THE LIMITS OF PHILOSOPHY 4: Necessity, Between Tragedy and Predestination: Daniel Heinsius and De Tragoediae Constitutione (1611) THE ARMINIAN CONTROVERSY AS TRAGEDY HEINSIUS’ PHILOSOPHICAL DEITY TRAGEDY AS PHILOSOPHY PLOT, SPECTACLE, AND STAGE MACHINERY TRAGEDY NOT MYSTERIOUS 5: Greek Tragedy and Hebrew Antiquity in John Milton’s 1671 Poems A TRAGIC PAUL: I CORINTHIANS 15:33 AND TEXTUAL SCHOLARSHIP c.1671 FAITH, STUDY, AND GREEK ERUDITION HEBREW ANTIQUITY IN PARADISE REGAIN’D TRAGEDY, “ILL IMITATED” KATHARSIS BEFORE ARISTOTLE LUSTRATIO AS UNDERSTANDING ACHIEVED BY TRIAL CONCLUSION: [CATASTROPHE] Conclusion: Samson Agonistes and the Limits of Tragedy Bibliography ABBREVIATIONS FOR FREQUENTLY CITED WORKS MANUSCRIPTS PRIMARY SOURCES SECONDARY SOURCES Index