HAMLET, WITTENBERG, & . . . FAUST?
A trend among scholars of Shakespeare & Religion is to view Hamlet as a Protestant v. Catholic play: The ghost regrets not receiving Catholic sacraments before death, and the prince goes to school in Wittenberg (of Luther fame).
But Marlowe's Wittenbergian, Faust, is not so often cited by scholars seeking hints of Catholic or Protestant ideas in the play. If we expand the Catholic-Protestant binary at least to three (Wittenberg-Luther-Faust), then Wittenberg points not only to Luther, but to temptation.
Hamlet is tempted to revenge and madness, but perhaps (according to some) recovers a bit after his sea voyage.
Luther questioned how literally Catholics should take Jesus' words over the break and wine, "This is my body/blood." A good question.
But this opens a can of worms (no Diet of Worms pun intended, but—OK). If we don't take eucharist literally as a "real presence," then why should we take "Word of God" as literally as some Protestants seem to, emphasizing centrality of Word to make up, perhaps, for what was lost in sacraments?
Does Luther therefore (unintentionally) make the path to skepticism & atheism (and maybe for Marlowe's Faust) easier? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Links to a description of my book project:
On LinkedIn: https://lnkd.in/eJGBtqV
On this blog: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2017/05/hamlets-bible-my-book-project-im.html
[Originally posted around the week of 9/18/17 on LinkedIn]
A trend among scholars of Shakespeare & Religion is to view Hamlet as a Protestant v. Catholic play: The ghost regrets not receiving Catholic sacraments before death, and the prince goes to school in Wittenberg (of Luther fame).
But Marlowe's Wittenbergian, Faust, is not so often cited by scholars seeking hints of Catholic or Protestant ideas in the play. If we expand the Catholic-Protestant binary at least to three (Wittenberg-Luther-Faust), then Wittenberg points not only to Luther, but to temptation.
Hamlet is tempted to revenge and madness, but perhaps (according to some) recovers a bit after his sea voyage.
Luther questioned how literally Catholics should take Jesus' words over the break and wine, "This is my body/blood." A good question.
But this opens a can of worms (no Diet of Worms pun intended, but—OK). If we don't take eucharist literally as a "real presence," then why should we take "Word of God" as literally as some Protestants seem to, emphasizing centrality of Word to make up, perhaps, for what was lost in sacraments?
Does Luther therefore (unintentionally) make the path to skepticism & atheism (and maybe for Marlowe's Faust) easier? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Links to a description of my book project:
On LinkedIn: https://lnkd.in/eJGBtqV
On this blog: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2017/05/hamlets-bible-my-book-project-im.html
[Originally posted around the week of 9/18/17 on LinkedIn]
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