Title: Determination and Free Will in Renaissance and Jacobean Tragedies

Description: This exploratory course will examine the notion of free will and determination in Renaissance thinking by discussing some representative texts by major Renaissance authors as well as by a close reading of two great plays of the age: Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Set texts:

(* Indicates preparatory reading.)

1, *Marlowe, Doctor Faustus

2, *Shakespeare, Macbeth

3, Excerpts from: Pomponazzi, On God's foreknowledge and human freedom. SEAS Library Xerox under Hargitai Márta’s name

4, The 39 articles of the Church of England: Article 17: Of predestination and election. Internet

5, Excerpts from: Erasmus, On the freedom of the will. In: Martin Luther, Ernest Gordon Rupp, Desiderius Erasmus, Philip S. Watson Westminster John Knox Press,

6, Excerpts from: Luther, On the bondage of the will.

And in: Martin Luther, Ernest Gordon Rupp, Desiderius Erasmus, Philip S. Watson

7, Excerpts from: Calvin, Man has now been deprived of freedom of choice...

8, Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man.

To consult:

1, Jump, Doctor Faustus. A Casebook.

2, Wain, Macbeth. A Casebook.

Requirements

Regular attendance

Set texts (as listed in weekly syllabus) read in full and in English for the appropriate seminars

Copies of set texts in English brought in for the appropriate seminars (vocabulary explored beforehand at home)

2 presentations (of 2 separate works) & useful and detailed handouts indicating published sources for group-mates & teacher

Active in class participation (continuous assessment)

Presentation topics:

1, Devils and Power in Marlowe and Shakespeare

Author(s): John D. Cox

Source: The Yearbook of English Studies, Vol. 23, Early Shakespeare Special Number (1993), pp.

46-64

Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association

Stable URL:

2, The New Historicism and Its Discontents: Politicizing Renaissance Drama

Author(s): Edward Pechter

Source: PMLA, Vol. 102, No. 3 (May, 1987), pp. 292-303

Published by: Modern Language Association

Stable URL: .

3, Marlowe's Cambridge Years and the Writing of Doctor Faustus

Author(s): G. M. Pinciss

Source: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 33, No. 2, Elizabethan and Jacobean

Drama (Spring, 1993), pp. 249-264

Published by: Rice University

Stable URL:

4, Marlowe and God: The Tragic Theology of Dr. Faustus

Author(s): Robert Ornstein

Source: PMLA, Vol. 83, No. 5 (Oct., 1968), pp. 1378-1385

Published by: Modern Language Association

Stable URL:

5, Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus" and "Sin against the Holy Ghost"Author(s): Gerard H. Cox, IIISource: Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Feb., 1973), pp. 119-137Published by: University of California PressStable URL:

6, Doctor Faustus and the Sin of Demoniality

Author(s): Nicolas Kiessling

Source: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 15, No. 2, Elizabethan and Jacobean

Drama (Spring, 1975), pp. 205-211

Published by: Rice University

Stable URL:

7, The Orthodox Christian Framework of Marlowe's Faustus

Author(s): Joseph Westlund

Source: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 3, No. 2, Elizabethan and Jacobean

Drama (Spring, 1963), pp. 191-205

Published by: Rice University

Stable URL:

8, In Deepest Consequence: Macbeth

Author(s): Herbert R. Coursen, Jr.Source: Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Autumn, 1967), pp. 375-388Published by: Folger Shakespeare Library in association with George Washington UniversityStable URL: .

9, Political Thought of the Renaissance and Reformation

Author(s): Felix GilbertSource: Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Jul., 1941), pp. 443-468Published by: University of California PressStable URL: .

10, Renaissance Problems in Calvin's Theology

Author(s): Charles Trinkaus

Source: Studies in the Renaissance, Vol. 1 (1954), pp. 59-80

Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Renaissance Society of America

Stable URL: .

11, Crimes without Criminals: Witchcraft and Its Control in Renaissance Europe

Author(s): Elliott P. CurrieSource: Law & Society Review, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Aug., 1968), pp. 7-32Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Law and Society AssociationStable URL: .

12,

The Moral Thinking of Macbeth Author: J. Gregory Keller Indiana–Purdue University Indianapolis

13, Lady MacBeth and the Daemonologie of Hysteria

Levin, Joanna.ELH, Volume 69, Number 1, Spring 2002, pp. 21-55 (Article)

DOI: 10.1353/elh.2002.0009

14,

Macbeth and the Tragedy of SinKen Colston

Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, Volume 13, Number 4, Fall 2010, pp. 60-95 (Article)

15, Physics Divined: The Science of Calvin, Hooker, and Macbeth

Kristen PooleSouth Central Review, Volume 26, Numbers 1 & 2, Winter & Spring 2009, pp. 127-152 (Article)