The Supernatural in Tragedy / Charles Edward Whitmore.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Whitmore, Charles Edward, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Supernatural in literature.

Tragedy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (378 pages)

Edition:

Reprint 2014

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2014]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1915 Excerpt: ... THE ELIZABETHAN AGE IN ENGLAND Section I.--Seneca In England We have seen from our survey of the medieval drama in England that it achieved a serious and artistically satisfying method of dealing with the supernatural; and furthermore, that the tradition thus established lasted until newer forms of drama were definitely replacing the old, and was never brusquely abandoned. In tracing the historical sequence of our subject we are justified in leaving the moralities aside, since by their very nature they lacked the possibility of attaining that contrast necessary to the effective use of the supernatural. The abstractions which take part in the moralities are all on the same plane; and differentiation only leads to the accentuating of the human characters, in other words toward comedy of manners. Considering, then, the miracle-plays as the source of the native method in the dramatic handling of the supernatural, we have to note that such material as they afforded for treatment was of essentially foreign origin, consisting as it did of the hierarchy of supernatural figures which Christianity had introduced. The method by which such figures are presented may fairly be called native, in view of the contrast it offers to similar methods on the Continent; but the figures themselves are not so. Yet outside the strictly religious circle lay a great body of lore concerning the supernatural which must have largely shaped popular conceptions in such matters, and in time reacted on the drama itself. We cannot, in the space here available, more than allude to these popular traditions: but a word on their possible relations to the general English attitude is in place. In the blending of races which ultimately produced the England that is an individual nation, two strains a...

Contents:

Frontmatter

PREFACE / Whitmore, Charles E.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART I. ANTIQUITY

CHAPTER I. GREEK TRAGEDY

CHAPTER II. SENECA

PART II. THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE RENAISSANCE

CHAPTER III. THE MEDIEVAL SACRED DRAMA

CHAPTER IV. THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY

CHAPTER V. THE ELIZABETHAN AGE IN ENGLAND

PART III. SOME MODERN ASPECTS

CHAPTER VI. THE PERIOD OF SUBSIDENCE

CHAPTER VII. THE MODERN REVIVAL

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Mai 2019)

ISBN:

0-674-28943-9

OCLC:

1013945736