Magic on the Renaissance Stage from Marlowe to Milton - Single View

Sorcerers, witches, conjurers: Elizabethan and Jacobean drama is crowded with adepts and apprentices in the obscure arts of summoning spirits or ghosts, creating gold out of base material, and casting spells on their adversaries. While some critics maintain that Renaissance playwrights draw on magic simply in order to motivate spectacular stage effects, others hold that stage magic refers to a fundamental tension between competing systems of knowledge in the early modern period in which esoteric “occult philosophy” clashed with the scientific revolution of Renaissance humanism. In our seminar we will address these issues through in-depth discussions of two representative plays from the period: Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which we will complement with two (shorter) dramatic texts – so-called ‘masques’ – by Ben Jonson and John Milton.

Literature:
Christopher Marlowe: Doctor Faustus (A and B texts); William Shakespeare: The Tempest; Ben Jonson: The Masque of Blackness; John Milton: Comus (A Masque Performed at Ludlow Castle).
Additional material will be made available on moodle at the beginning of the semester.

Assessment and creditation:
3 credit points for close reading of seminar texts, active and regular participation, and the chairing of one session in tandem or a small group.
Participants must have read Doctor Faustus (A and B texts) at the beginning of the term.