scholarly journals “At War ’Twixt Will and Will Not”: On Shakespeare’s Idea of Religious Experience in Measure for Measure

Religions ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Smith
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Shared Experience ◽  
Measure For Measure ◽  
The Law ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
Religious Landscape

“Religions in Shakespeare’s Writings,” the title of this special issue, can prompt consideration not only of singular exceptions to the normative religious landscape but also of the ideas that support the banner under which a plurality of examples together may be described as “religious.” In recent years, readers of Shakespeare have devoted attention to exploring Shakespeare’s engagement with specific theological and sectarian movements in early modern Europe. Such work has changed how we view the relation between theater and its religious landscapes, but it may be that in focusing on the topical we overlook Shakespeare’s place among such sociologists and philosophers of religion as Montaigne, Hobbes, James, Weber, and Berger. To this end, I argue that in Measure for Measure Shakespeare uses law to synthesize certain aspects of religious experience from divergent corners. And drawing on descriptions of religion from anthropology and phenomenology, I suggest that Shakespeare unites his characters through patterns of action within this deadly exigency that demonstrate a shared experience of religion as a desire for salvation beyond the law.

Introduction

Conversions ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Ditchfield ◽  
Helen Smith
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Modern Europe

The introduction explores existing scholarship on conversion and on the interrelationships between gender and religious experience in early modern Europe. It argues for the need to consider masculine as well as feminine modes of selfhood as malleable in the light of changing religious affiliations, and considers questions of performativity, language, materiality and orientation. Briefly outlining the contents of the collection as a whole, the introduction also points forward to important possibilities for further research and scholarship.

scholarly journals Between the Altar and the Pulpit: The (New?) Materiality of the Spiritual

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 0-136
Author(s):  
Raingard Esser ◽  
Andrea Strübind
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
The Political ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
International Conference ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
Parish Churches ◽  
The Impact

This special issue is based on papers presented at the international conference “Zwischen Kanzel und Altar. Die (neue) Materialität des Spirituellen” held at the Johannes a Lasco Bibliothek, Emden in April 2016. Continuity and change in church interiors were key concepts addressed at the conference. The studies presented here analyse the impact of confessional change on church interiors and intentionally move away from the cathedrals and parish churches in the political and religious centres of early modern Europe.

scholarly journals Between the Altar and the Pulpit: The (New?) Materiality of the Spiritual

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 2-13
Author(s):  
Raingard Esser ◽  
Andrea Strübind
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
The Political ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
International Conference ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
Parish Churches ◽  
The Impact

The special issue is based on papers presented at the international conference “Zwischen Kanzel und Altar. Die (neue) Materialität des Spirituellen” held at the Johannes a Lasco Bibliothek, Emden in April 2016. Continuity and change in church interiors were key concepts addressed at the conference. The studies presented here analyse the impact of confessional change on church interiors and intentionally move away from the cathedrals and parish churches in the political and religious centres of early modern Europe.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Paul B. Moyer
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Shared Responsibility ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
The Law ◽  
Modern Europe

This chapter traces the long-standing interpretations of witchcraft in New England. It takes advantage of studies on occult crime in early modern Europe that has enriched the understanding of how concerns over magical mischief intersected with gender, class, religion, and the law. It also identifies historians that stressed the divergence of elite and folk views on the occult and tended to see witch-hunting as a process imposed from above. The chapter looks at newer studies on European witchcraft that have broken down dichotomous views. It reveals a greater level of give and take between common folk and elites when it came to witch beliefs and shared responsibility for witch-hunting.

IDEOLOGY AND THE ANCIEN RÉGIME

2001 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 845-852
Author(s):  
DAVID PARKER
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Early Modern France ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Modern France ◽  
Duke University ◽  
The Law ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
Ancien Régime

Politics, ideology and the law in early modern Europe: essays in honour of J. H. M. Salmon. Edited by Adrianna E. Bakos. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 1994. Pp. xii+343. ISBN 1-878822-39-X. £55.00.Changing identities in early modern France. Edited by Michael Wolfe. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1997. Pp. vii+390. ISBN 0-8223-1908-X. £42.50Royal and republican sovereignty in early modern Europe: essays in memory of Ragnhild Hatton. Edited by Robert Oresko, G. C. Gibbs, and H. M. Scott. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pp. xxi+671. ISBN 0-521-41910-7. £70.00Images of kingship in early modern France. By Adrianna Bakos. London and New York: Routledge, 1997. Pp. x+249. ISBN 0-415-15478-2. £52.50.

Uneven conversions: how did laywomen become nuns in the early modern world?

Conversions ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Simple Process ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
Religious Landscape

Accustomed as we are to the presence of nuns in the religious landscape of early modern Europe, we imagine a straightforward trajectory by which secular women who entered a convent took vows and donned a veil. This chapter interrogates the seemingly simple process by which laywomen were “converted” into nuns. Upon entering convents, women crossed a border that separated the profane from the sacred. The cloister setting, in turn, required them to adapt to a very different type of existence. They were expected to adhere to monastic principles, many of which were distinctly gendered. Using evidence from English and Spanish convents between 1450 and 1650, this paper will analyze the mechanisms, and the material considerations, that shaped this transformation. How did religious rules, convent architecture, male ecclesiastical oversight, material culture, the rhythms of daily life within the convent, and other factors shape the process by which secular women became nuns? Ultimately, the chapter argues, these conversions were uneven or incomplete. The mechanisms listed above that conditioned this conversion permitted and sometimes even encouraged a complicated identity that blurred the distinction between sacred and secular worlds.

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