Scepticism and belief in English witchcraft drama, 1538-1681.
Material type: TextPublisher: Lund : Lund University Press, 2019Description: 1 online resource (360 pages)Content type:- text
- computer
- online resource
- 9789198376876
- 919837687X
- English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600 -- History and criticism
- Witchcraft in literature
- Witches in literature
- Belief and doubt in literature
- English drama -- 17th century -- History and criticism
- Literary studies: plays & playwrights
- Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700
- Literary Criticism / Subjects & Themes
- Witches in literature
- Witchcraft in literature
- English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan
- English drama
- Belief and doubt in literature
- Literature
- 1500-1699
- Witchcraft
- Demonology
- Scepticism
- Belief
- Magic
- The Witch of Edmonton
- The Late Lancashire Witches
- The Lancashire Witches
- Macbeth
- Dr Faustus
- 822.209 23
- PR658.W58 P83 2019
This book situates witchcraft drama within its cultural and intellectual context, highlighting the centrality of scepticism and belief in witchcraft to the genre. It is argued that these categories are most fruitfully understood not as static and mutually exclusive positions within the debate around witchcraft, but as rhetorical tools used within it. In drama, too, scepticism and belief are vital issues. The psychology of the witch character is characterised by a combination of impious scepticism towards God and credulous belief in the tricks of the witch's master, the devil. Plays which present plausible depictions of witches typically use scepticism as a support: the witch's power is subject to important limitations which make it easier to believe. Plays that take witchcraft less seriously present witches with unrestrained power, an excess of belief which ultimately induces scepticism. But scepticism towards witchcraft can become a veneer of rationality concealing other beliefs that pass without sceptical examination. The theatrical representation of witchcraft powerfully demonstrates its uncertain status as a historical and intellectual phenomenon; belief and scepticism in witchcraft drama are always found together, in creative tension with one another.
English.
Print version record.
Open Access EbpS
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