The Idolatrous Eye: Iconoclasm and Theater in Early-Modern England

Capa
Oxford University Press, 13/01/2000 - 208 páginas
This study argues that the century after the Reformation saw a crisis in the way that Europeans expressed their religious experience. Focusing specifically on how this crisis affected the drama of England, O'Connell shows that Reformation culture was preoccupied with idolatry and that the theater was frequently attacked as idolatrous. This anti-theatricalism notably targeted the traditional cycles of mystery plays--a type of vernacular, popular biblical theater that from a modern perspective would seem ideally suited to advance the Reformation project. The Idolatrous Eye provides a wide perspective on iconoclasm in the sixteenth century, and in so doing, helps us to understand why this biblical theater was found transgressive and what this meant for the secular theater that followed.

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Índice

Introduction
3
Theater and the Devils Teats
14
Word against Image The Context of Iconoclasm
36
Gods Body and Incarnational Drama
63
The Textualization of Gods Body
89
Let the Audience Look to Their Eyes Jonson and Shakespeare
116
Notes
145
Bibliography
177
Index
189
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Página 133 - I have of late— but wherefore I know not— lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
Página 131 - The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen; man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.
Página 117 - IT is most true that eyes are form'd to serve The inward light, and that the heavenly part Ought to be King, from whose rules who do swerve, Rebels to Nature, strive for their own smart It is most true, what we call Cupid's dart An image is, which for ourselves we carve, And, fools, adore in temple of our heart, Till that good god make church and churchmen starve.
Página 39 - I do not worship matter; I worship the Creator of matter who became matter for my sake, who willed to take His abode in matter; who worked out my salvation through matter.
Página 80 - For woo my witte es in a were That moffes me mykill in my mynde; The Godhede...
Página 67 - Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Página 56 - ... set forth or extol any images, relics, or miracles, for any superstition or lucre, nor allure the people, by any enticements, to the pilgrimage of any saint...
Página 163 - They materialize a way of experiencing, bring a particular cast of mind out into the world of objects, where men can look at it.

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