The play of paradox
Subtitle: stage and sermon in Renaissance England
By: Bryan Crockett.
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 1995
Place of publication: Philadelphia
Language: eng
Number of pages: 213
Subjects: English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600 -- History and criticism.; Christianity and literature -- England -- History -- 16th century.; Christianity and literature -- England -- History -- 17th century.; English drama -- 17th century -- History and criticism.; Preaching -- England -- History -- 16th century.; Preaching -- England -- History -- 17th century.; Paradox -- Religious aspects -- Christianity.; Sermons, English -- 16th century -- History and criticism.; Sermons, English -- 17th century -- History and criticism.; Theater -- England -- History -- 16th century.; Theater -- England -- History -- 17th century.; Renaissance -- England.
Description: The Play of Paradox: Stage and Sermon in Renaissance England is a wide-ranging investigation of Tudor/Stuart drama, Reformation preaching, and the relations between the two. The cross-fertilization between the two kinds of performance engendered among audiences a ready receptivity to the rhetorical use of paradox. The two modes similarly capitalized on characteristic Renaissance syntheses of magic, drama, and religion to develop strategies for negotiating state control.

In chapters that set comedies and tragedies by Shakespeare, Jonson, Webster, and others side by side with sermons by Hooker, Andrewes, Donne, and popular preachers whose works have not been reprinted since the early seventeenth century, Bryan Crockett argues that stage and pulpit performances elicited similar responses to the political and theological divisions marked by the incessant polemics of the age.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [187]-200) and index.