Religion And Culture In Renaissance England

These essays by leading historians and literary scholars investigate the role of religion in shaping political, social and literary forms, and their reciprocal role in shaping early modern religion, from the Reformation to the Civil Wars. Reflecting and rethinking the insights of new historicism and cultural studies, individual essays take up various aspects of the productive, if tense, relation between Tudor-Stuart Christianity and culture, and explore how religion informs some of the central texts of English Renaissance literature: the vernacular Bible, Foxe's Acts and Monuments, Hooker's Laws, Shakespeare's plays and sonnets, the poems of John Donne, Amelia Lanyer and John Milton. The collection demonstrates the centrality of religion to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, and its influence on early modern constructions of gender, subjectivity and nationhood.

Offering fuller understandings of both dramatic representations and the complexities of religious culture, this collection reveals the ways in which religion and performance were inextricably linked in early modern England. Its readings extend beyond the interpretation of straightforward religious allusions and suggest new avenues for theorizing the dynamic relationship between religious representations and dramatic ones. By addressing the particular ways in which commercial drama adapted the sensory aspects of religious experience to its own symbolic systems, the volume enacts a methodological shift towards a more nuanced semiotics of theatrical performance. Covering plays by a wide range of dramatists, including Shakespeare, individual essays explore the material conditions of performance, the intricate resonances between dramatic performance and religious ceremonies, and the multiple valences of religious references in early modern plays. Additionally, Religion and Drama in Early Modern England reveals the theater's broad interpretation of post-Reformation Christian practice, as well as its engagement with the religions of Islam, Judaism and paganism.

By examining orthodox methods of thought in the Renaissance, the author tries to reconstruct a picture of the dominant culture of the period in England between 1580 and 1630.

Seventeen distinguished historians of early modern Britain pay tribute to an outstanding scholar and teacher, presenting reviews of major areas of debate.

In Performance and Religion in Early Modern England, Matthew J. Smith seeks to expand our view of “the theatrical.” By revealing the creative and phenomenal ways that performances reshaped religious material in early modern England, he offers a more inclusive and integrative view of performance culture. Smith argues that early modern theatrical and religious practices are better understood through a comparative study of multiple performance types: not only commercial plays but also ballads, jigs, sermons, pageants, ceremonies, and festivals. Our definition of performance culture is augmented by the ways these events looked, sounded, felt, and even tasted to their audiences. This expanded view illustrates how the post-Reformation period utilized new capabilities brought about by religious change and continuity alike. Smith posits that theatrical practice at this time was acutely aware of its power not just to imitate but to work performatively, and to create spaces where audiences could both imaginatively comprehend and immediately enact their social, festive, ethical, and religious overtures. Each chapter in the book builds on the previous ones to form a cumulative overview of early modern performance culture. This book is unique in bringing this variety of performance types, their archives, venues, and audiences together at the crossroads of religion and theater in early modern England. Scholars, graduate and undergraduate students, and those generally interested in the Renaissance will enjoy this book.

Examination of the influence of James I on the religious and cultural life of England.

"The Renaissance saw a dramatic explosion of such force that, four hundred years later, its plays are still amongst the most frequently performed and studied we have. This anthology offers a full introduction to Renaissance theatre in its historical and political context, along with newly edited and comprehensively annotated texts of the following plays: The Spanish Tragedy (Thomas Kyd); Arden of Faversham (Anon.); Edward II (Christopher Marlowe); A Woman Killed with Kindness (Thomas Heywood); The Tragedy of Mariam (Elizabeth Cary); The Masque of Blackness (Ben Jonson); The Knight of the Burning Pestle (Francis Beaumont); Epicoene, or the Silent Woman (Ben Jonson); The Roaring Girl (Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker); The Changeling (Thomas Middleton and William Rowley); and 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (John Ford).".