Stages of Evil: Occultism in Western Theater and DramaUniversity Press of Kentucky, 2005 M12 23 - 344 pages "The evil that men do" has been chronicled for thousands of years on the European stage, and perhaps nowhere else is human fear of our own evil more detailed than in its personifications in theater. Early writers used theater to communicate human experiences and to display reverence for the gods governing daily life. Playwrights from Euripides onward sought inspiration from this interplay between the worldly and the occult, using human belief in the divine to govern characters' actions within a dramatic arena. The constant adherence to the supernatural, despite changing religious ideologies over the centuries, testifies to a deep and continuing belief in the ability of a higher power to interfere in human life. Stages of Evil is the first book to examine the representation and relationship of evil and the occult from the prehistoric origins of drama through to the present day. Drawing on examples of magic, astronomy, demonology, possession, exorcism, fairies, vampires, witchcraft, hauntings, and voodoo, author Robert Lima explores how theater shaped American and European perceptions of the occult and how the dramatic works studied here reflect society back upon itself at different points in history. From representations of Dionysian rites in ancient Greece, to the Mouth of Hell in the Middle Ages, to the mystical cabalistic life of the Hasidic Jews, to the witchcraft and magic of the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage, Lima traces the recurrence of supernatural motifs in pivotal plays and performance works of the Western tradition. Considering numerous myths and cultural artifacts, such as the "wild man," he describes the evolution and continual representation of supernatural archetypes on the modern stage. He also discusses the sociohistorical implications of Christian and pagan representations of evil and the theatrical creativity that occultism has engendered. Delving into his own theatrical, literary, folkloric, and travel experiences to enhance his observations, Lima assays the complex world of occultism and examines diverse works of Western theater and drama. A unique and comprehensive bibliography of European and American plays concludes the study and facilitates further research into the realm of the social and literary impact of the occult. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 39
... English monk Felix between 730 and 740, contains an episode in which the saint is taken “to the accursed jaws of hell” (ad nefandas tartari fauces), there to be faced by a spectacle more frightening than that witnessed by Virgil's ...
... souls are brought there as well. The Mouth of Hell reached its apogee in fifteenth-century plays, sometimes manifest in innovative, sometimes in colossal ways. The manuscript of the English morality play The Castle of Perseverance.
Occultism in Western Theater and Drama Robert Lima. manuscript of the English morality play The Castle of Perseverance (ca. 1425), for one, contains a circular plan that has been surmised to hold the key to its staging (see fig. 5) ...
... English guild plays, such as that of the Cappers' Harrowing of Hell and the Weavers' Doomsday, both from Coventry, had a Mouth of Hell (Chambers, 137 n. 3), as did the 1433 Doomsday pageant of York (Johnston and Rogerson, 1:55). But the ...
... English play Tobias (1564), performed in Lincoln, is listed “First, hell mouth with a neither chap” (Craig, 80)—given elsewhere as “First, Hell Mouth with a lower jaw” (Meredith and Tailby, 188)—which item was being stored in a private ...
Contents
Daemonic Antecedents of the Commedia | |
Touchstone of Celestinas Magic | |
Possession and Exorcism | |
Voodoo Terror in Eugene ONeills | |
Sex as Grimoire in Arthur Millers The Crucible | |
The Politics of Demonic Hysteria in John | |
Malign Decadence in Francisco Nievas | |
Cauldron and Cave | |
Chthonic Sanctuaries in Early | |
Bibliography of European and American Drama of | |
Index | |