Tragedy as philosophy in the Reformation world / Russ Leo.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Leo, Russ, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Tragic, The.

Tragic, The, in literature.

Reformation.

Literature, Modern--15th and 16th centuries--History and criticism.

Literature, Modern.

Literature, Modern--17th century--History and criticism.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xiv, 293 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press, 2019.

Summary:

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 aseries 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 philosophicalnotion 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 the0expense of-even to the exclusion of-dramatic presentation.

Contents:

Introduction [Prologus]

Introduction: Tragedy's Intellectual Resources p. 3

Reformation and Tragedy, c.1550 p. 10

Erasmus and the Resources of Tragedy p. 14

Quid hac imagine lugubrius cogitari potest?: Melanchthon on Tragedy p. 21

Tragoedia Sacra p. 29

A Philosophical Poetics p. 31

I (Protasis). Tragedy and Theology

1 Reformation Tragedy and Revelation: David Pareus' Tragic Typology p. 45

David Pareus, Origen, and Genre p. 49

Tragic Structure and Recognition in Pammachius and the Tragedia p. 53

Christus Triumphans and the Tragedy of Antichrist p. 61

"The Tragic Form of Each Vision" p. 65

Tragic Repetition p. 73

Typology as Prophecy p. 77

2 Lodovico Castelvetro's Heterodox Poetics: Tragic Accommodation p. 81

Heresy in Modena p. 83

Castelvetro's Condemnation p. 90

The Heterodoxy of the Poetica p. 93

Tragic Form in the Poetica p. 100

Tragedy and Accommodation p. 106

3 John Rainolds, Hamlet, and the Anti-Theatrical Aristotle p. 119

Species of Fiction: "Theater-sights & Stage-playes" and Mendacia officiosa p. 125

Rainolds and Oxford Aristotelianism p. 133

Spectacle and Recitation p. 144

Enter Reynaldo, Mendax p. 154

"The play's the thing" p. 158

II [Epitasis]. Tragedy and the Limits of Philosophy

4 Necessity, Between Tragedy and Predestination: Daniel Heinsius and De Tragoediae Constitutione (1611) p. 167

The Arminian Controversy as Tragedy p. 173

Heinsius' Philosophical Deity p. 179

Tragedy as Philosophy p. 183

Plot, Spectacle, and Stage Machinery p. 190

Tragedy Not Mysterious p. 197

5 Greek Tragedy and Hebrew Antiquity in John Milton's 1671 Poems p. 207

A Tragic Paul: I Corinthians 15:33 and Textual Scholarship c.1671 p. 211

Faith, Study and Greek Erudition p. 216

Hebrew Antiquity in Paradise Regain'd p. 222

Tragedy, "Ill imitated" p. 226

Katharsis before Aristotle p. 227

Lustratio as Understanding Achieved by Trial p. 237

Conclusion [Catastrophe]

Conclusion: Samson Agonistes and the Limits of Tragedy p. 243.

ISBN:

0198834217

9780198834212

OCLC:

1039666502