Ghosts, Devils, Magicians, and Monsters: Performing the Occult in Early English Drama

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Course Questions What do magical onstage moments tell us

about religious beliefs, about the imagination, or about cultural attitudes towards difference?

What do they suggest about the limits of knowledge and science?

How is theater uniquely attuned to the occult?

Ultimately, why are people so interested in mysterious, unexplainable phenomena?

Some Possible Topics the occult as a symbol of art the relationships between the occult and science

and religion metatheatricality and dramatic performance the occult as a marker of cultural difference nationhood and nationalism royalty and politics psychology

Skills Academic reflection, composition,

rhetoric, and argumentation Intensive reading and thoughtful

analysis Assessment and application of primary

sources Research and documentation Performance and performance critique

HomeworkRead course website,

especially close reading assignment and samples.

Read “Playgoing in Shakespeare’s London” and “Sonnet 86” (available on website, password “magic”).

http://udel.edu/~lellock

Group Task

Write a definition of “magic.”

Definition of “Magic”from Oxford English

Dictionary“The use of ritual activities or observances which are intended to influence the course of events or to manipulate the natural world, usually involving the use of an occult or secret body of knowledge; sorcery, witchcraft.”

Compare your group’s definition to this one. What is different? Would you revise your definition of magic based on this version? Consider terms such as illusion, spectacle, trick, ritual, performance.

Renaissance BeliefsPurgatory and Ghosts

“Euery man and childe that is buried must pay sumwhat for masses and diriges to be song for him or elles they will accuse the dedes frendes and executours of heresie.”

-- A Supplicacyon for the Beggers written about the year 1529, and (as is believed) by Simon Fish

Ludwig Lavater“We ought not without great cause to suspecte all spirities, and other apparitions.”

Our Beliefs

Yes No Not Sure

02468

1012

Do you believe in ghosts?

Do You Believe in Ghosts?

Our Beliefs

Yes No Not Sure

02468

101214

Do you believe in an afterlife?

Do You Believe in an Afterlife?

Angels, Demons, and Conjurors“And glutted now with learning's golden gifts,He surfeits upon cursed necromancy; Nothing so sweet as magic is to him, Which he prefers before his chiefest bliss: And this the man that in his study sits.” –Marlowe’s Faustus

Yes No Not Sure

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10

Do you believe in angels or demons?

Do You Believe in Angels or Demons?

Our Beliefs

Do you believe in magic?

048

12

Do you believe in magic?

Do you believe in magic?

Miracles and Predestination“We call predestination God's eternal decree, by which he determined with himself what he willed to become of each man.” --John Calvin

Our Beliefs

Yes No Not Sure

02468

1012

Do you believe in fate, karma, and/or predestination?

Do you believe in fate, karma, and/or predes-tination?

Our Beliefs

Yes No Not Sure

02468

1012

Do you believe in miracles or divine intervention in human

affairs?Do you believe in miracles or divine interven-tion in human affairs?

Charmsimage magic, amulets, relics, holy objects, charmed circles, weapon salve, symbols

Paracelsus and the Weapon Salve

“Take of moss growing on the head of a thief who has been hanged and left in the air; of real mummy; of human blood, still warm – of each one ounce; of human suet, two ounces; of linseed oil, turpentine, and Armenian bole – of each two drachms. Mix all well in a mortar, and keep the salve in an oblong, narrow urn.”

John Dee, Physician to Queen Elizabeth

“This most secret mystery is clearly and perfectly shown in our Monad by the hieroglyphic figure of Taurus, which is here represented, and by that of Mars…”

“Oh, my God, how profound are these mysteries!”

Our Beliefs

Yes No7.47.67.8

88.28.48.68.8

9

Do you have a lucky object?

Do you have a lucky object?

Astrology and Numerology

Our Beliefs

Yes No02468

1012

Have you ever consulted a psychic, Ouija board, Tarot cards, or daily horoscope?

Have you ever consulted a psychic, Ouija board, Tarot cards, or daily horoscope?

Witches“The fearefull aboundinge at this time in this countrie, of these detestable slaves of the Devill, the Witches or enchanters, hath moved me (beloved reader) to dispatch in post, this following treatise of mine…to preasse thereby, so farre as I can, to resolve the doubting harts of many; both that such assaultes of Sathan are most certainly practized, and that the instrumentes thereof, merits most severely to be punished.”King James, Demonologie

“Magick is nothing else but the knowledge of the whole course of Nature. …..It openeth unto us the properties and qualities of hidden things, and it teacheth us by the agreement and disagreement of things, either so to sunder them, or else to lay them so together, as thereby we do strange works…. Wherefore, as many of you as come to behold Magick, must be persuaded that the works of Magick are nothing else but the works of Nature, whose dutiful hand-maid Magick is.”Giambattista della Porta, Natural Magick, 1658

“Magic comprises the most profound contemplation of the most secret things, their nature, power, quality, substance, and virtues, as well as the knowledge of their whole nature.” Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, De Occulta Philosophia, 1533 Alchemy

Natural Wonders: Monsters and Medicinal

Plants

“Æthiopia produces dragons, not so large as those of India, but still, twenty cubits in length. The only thing that surprises me is, how Juba came to believe that they have crests.”–Pliny

Contemporary Connections

WHY? Our big questionsWhy is the occult so interesting to us? Why do we constantly try to represent it in art and literature?

How do we represent it in art and literature, in particular, in drama and performance?

Exit

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