Description:
The Transformations of Tragedy: Christian Influences from Early Modern to Modern explores the influence of Christian theology and culture upon the development of post-classical Western tragedy. The volume is divided into three parts: early modern, modern, and contemporary. This series of essays by established and emergent scholars offers a sustained study of Christianity's creative influence upon experimental forms of Western tragic drama.
Both early modern and modern tragedy emerged within periods of remarkable upheaval in Church history, yet Christianity's diverse influence upon tragedy has too often been either ignored or denounced by major tragic theorists. This book contends instead that the history of tragedy cannot be sufficiently theorised without fully registering the impact of Christianity in transition towards modernity.
Review Quotes: "Through rich, powerfully argued case studies this collection provides proof positive of the radically informing relationship between Christianity and understandings of the tragic experience in the sixteenth century and the modern era. The essays take a variety of approaches from the historical materialist to the philosophical and theological, but the twin images of humanity at bay, self-alienated, subject to savage violence; and humanity struggling to understand and represent its collective suffering, victimhood, and capacity for transcendence punctuate the volume, giving it a satisfying, challenging coherence." - Greg Walker, Regius Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature, University of Edinburgh