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
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... earth” (127). The fear of the torments to which Lucretius refers had long standing in the ancient world prior to Rome and Greece. Although the tenets of Egyptian, Babylonian, Mesopotamian, and Judaic religions, among others, did not ...
... earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and ...
... earth.13 It was perhaps inevitable in that scheme of embodiment of evil to hold that the mortal being brought into the place of punishment would experience the nefarious rite of passage through a monstruous mouth that was zoomorphic in ...
... earth” (Matt. 12:40). 3. Rahab is a name for Egypt, so the language in Isaiah may be symbolic rather than literal. Rahab is also mentioned in Job 9:13. 4. The name Nehushtan comes from the Hebrew nahash or “serpent,” from the Vedic ...
... Earth in spring. The magical season of nature's fecundity was emulated in rituals of sympathetic magic that culminated in sexual coupling. Such fertility figures in the British Isles and on the Continent derive from a very early ...
Contents
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 | |