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Download Shakespeare's Common Prayers: The Book of Common Prayer and the Elizabethan Age ePub

by Daniel Swift

Daniel Swift History and Criticism English

Download Shakespeare's Common Prayers: The Book of Common Prayer and the Elizabethan Age ePub

ISBN 0199838569
ISBN13 978-0199838561
Language English
Author Daniel Swift
Publisher Oxford University Press; 1 edition (October 5, 2012)
Pages 304
Formats docx lrf lrf docx
Category Fiction
Subcategory History and Criticism
Size ePub 1510 kb
Size Fb2 1413 kb
Rating: 4.8
Votes: 926

Societies and entire nations draw their identities from certain founding documents, whether charters, declarations, or manifestos. The Book of Common Prayer figures as one of the most crucial in the history of the English-speaking peoples. First published in 1549 to make accessible the devotional language of the late Henry the VIII's new church, the prayer book was a work of monumental religious, political, and cultural importance. Within its rituals, prescriptions, proscriptions, and expressions were fought the religious wars of the age of Shakespeare. This diminutive book--continuously reformed and revised--was how that age defined itself. In Shakespeare's Common Prayers, Daniel Swift makes dazzling and original use of this foundational text, employing it as an entry-point into the works of England's most celebrated writer. Though commonly neglected as a source for Shakespeare's work, Swift persuasively and conclusively argues that the Book of Common Prayer was absolutely essential to the playwright. It was in the Book's ambiguities and its fierce contestations that Shakespeare found the ready elements of drama: dispute over words and their practical consequences, hope for sanctification tempered by fear of simple meaninglessness, and the demand for improvised performance as compensation for the failure of language to fulfill its promises. What emerges is nothing less than a portrait of Shakespeare at work: absorbing, manipulating, reforming, and struggling with the explosive chemistry of word and action that comprised early modern liturgy. Swift argues that the Book of Common Prayer mediates between the secular and the devotional, producing a tension that makes Shakespeare's plays so powerful and exceptional. Tracing the prayer book's lines and motions through As You Like It, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, Othello, and particularly Macbeth, Swift reveals how the greatest writer of the age--of perhaps any age--was influenced and guided by its most important book.

This listing is for Shakespeare's Common Prayers : The Book of Common Prayer and the Elizabethan Age by Daniel Swift (2012, Hardcover) : Daniel Swift (2012) ISBN 9780199838561: All previously owned books are guaranteed to be in good condition.

Societies and entire nations draw their identities from certain founding documents, whether charters, declarations, or manifestos. The Book of Common Prayer figures as one of the most crucial in the history of the English-speaking. The Book of Common Prayer figures as one of the most crucial in the history of the English-speaking peoples. Within its rituals, prescriptions, proscriptions, and expressions were fought the religious wars of the age of Shakespeare.

In Shakespeare's Common Prayers, Daniel Swift makes dazzling and original use of this foundational text, employing it as an entry-point into the works of England's most celebrated writer

In Shakespeare's Common Prayers, Daniel Swift makes dazzling and original use of this foundational text, employing it as an entry-point into the works of England's most celebrated writer. Though commonly neglected as a source for Shakespeare's work, Swift persuasively and conclusively argues that the Book of Common Prayer was absolutely essential to the playwright.

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Shakespeare's Common Prayers book. The premise of the book is how the Book of Common Prayer may have influenced Shakespeare's writings, but I found it was more than that. I learned more about the tension surrounding the BCP and revisions that were being made at the time Shakespeare wrote some of his plays. However, I did find that parts of the book were more about the interpretations and history lessons of the BCP and thin on how it could connect with Romeo and Juliet or Much Ado About Nothing.

However, the Prayer Book is also a kind of theatrical work, detailing the interactions of minister, congregation and .

However, the Prayer Book is also a kind of theatrical work, detailing the interactions of minister, congregation and God during moments of high drama. In fact, as Swift says, The prayer book struggled, throughout this period, with its twin and rival, the commercial theater. Plays were the other great common work of the age, both written collaboratively and performed before crowds. As he says, Macbeth even more than Hamlet is the great drama of uncertain presence. Is it a dagger or not?

Great book about the history and influence of the Book of Common Prayer on Shakespearean drama. As both a lover of Shakespeare's works and the Book of Common Prayer, I suppose I expected too much from this book

Great book about the history and influence of the Book of Common Prayer on Shakespearean drama. Strong readings of Macbeth and other works, with an emphasis on liturgical, performative as well as semantic, poetic effects. Themes include the marriage service, the funeral service, the Eucharist, and baptism. As both a lover of Shakespeare's works and the Book of Common Prayer, I suppose I expected too much from this book. Although the comparisons were interesting and context was thoroughly explored, I failed to find compelling the arguments Swift brought forth that the Bard leaned heavily on the rubrics of the BCP for his dramas.

Daniel Swift makes an observation that is so obvious that it seems to have been little noticed by students of literature: the literary product best known to all Elizabethans, including the illiterate, was the Book of Common Prayer. By law, everyone in the realm was expected to attend church, and, by law, the liturgy was performed out of the Book of Common Prayer. Within it were all of the ceremonies surrounding life's milestones. Baptism, marriage, and death were given meaning by its set forms.

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Talk about Shakespeare's Common Prayers: The Book of Common Prayer and the Elizabethan Age

Axebourne

In general, a good book which had the potential to be great but missed out a bit. It suffers from some disconnects in the presentation and some extraneous rambling. It apparently was written originally as a doctoral dissertation. The mentor of the project is to be taken to task for not organizing the thought of the the author to properly linearize his propositions into a clearly coherent presentation of the examples and proofs. At times the author also suffers from some theological lapses with some lack of understanding of medieval and Renaissance practices. Some theses are put forward, never developed and go unproven. A bit more effort and research could turn this into a great book, but needs work!!

Niwield

Great book about the history and influence of the Book of Common Prayer on Shakespearean drama. Strong readings of Macbeth and other works, with an emphasis on liturgical / performative as well as semantic / poetic effects. Themes include the marriage service, the funeral service, the Eucharist, and baptism. Surprisingly Swift sees Shakespeare losing interest in The Book of Common Prayer after Macbeth, despite the strong baptismal themes of the romances. This is a scholarly book, but written in an accessible style.

Barinirm

As both a lover of Shakespeare's works and the Book of Common Prayer, I suppose I expected too much from this book. Although the comparisons were interesting and context was thoroughly explored, I failed to find compelling the arguments Swift brought forth that the Bard leaned heavily on the rubrics of the BCP for his dramas.

Tuliancel

good book on an interesting subject

Gardall

Just fascinating. Great insights--apparently insights that are
the young author's own discoveries, although, as he explains them,
self evident. And he does read well. He has a few bits on the poetry
in the plays that remind one that Shakespeare was really a very good
poet.

Moogugore

Shakespeare's Common Prayers. Swift's book is full of enlightening information and well written. It informs Shakespeare and the whole period of English history.

Fearlesssinger

It quickly became obvious that this book was Mr. Swift's Ph.D. Thesis. It was very academic and repetitive. (I know. I had to write one myself.) It will probably be of interest only to dedicated students of Shakespeare and the history of the Book of Common Prayer.

Daniel Swift explores what he convincingly calls the neglected topic of the literary influence on Shakespeare's works of the Book of Common Prayer (BCP). He calls the BCP "the central religious text of this powerfully religious age" (p. 3). He knows that many Shakespeare scholars show no interest in connecting Shakespeare's works with religious texts.

I strongly share Swift's wish to resurrect "a now-lost cultural knowledge" and "to trace the bounces of an echo" (p. 56) of biblical allusions that would have been familiar to Shakespeare's audience. Curiously, though, Swift's enthusiasm for the BCP leads him to ignore a translation of the psalms that he knows was popular in Shakespeare's day. In fact, Swift even states that the Whole Book of Psalms (WBP) and the BCP were two of the three "most frequently reprinted books of Shakespeare's age" (p. 31).

Swift links Lady Macbeth's "Out, damned spot!" with the closing homily in the BCP's service of matrimony, when the priest says, "Christ... not having spot or wrinkle..." (p. 219). Fair enough. But the chief penitential psalm (Psalm 51) seems even more relevant. It is only the WBP translation that includes the phrase in verse 7, "And if thou wash away my spot, the snow in whiteness shall I pass." Lady Macbeth twice uses the word wash to refer to trying to clean her hands; Macbeth himself uses it once in the same context.

Swift has made a solid contribution to Shakespeare scholarship with his book, even though I do not agree that the BCP was Shakespeare's "most powerful source" (p. 237). Swift imagines that his thesis would be proven if we ever found Shakespeare's "own annotated copy" of the BCP. I gather Swift has not yet heard that Roger Stritmatter has already helped prove that we do have the annotated copies of the Geneva Bible and WBP owned by the real author of Shakespeare's works (Edward de Vere).

Let me allow Swift to have the final words--"Like so much in Shakespeare, we cannot wholly know [when Macbeth was first performed]. But we can be sure that this playwright knew perfectly the book that was the most controversial and adored of his lifetime. If we place Shakespeare and the Book of Common Prayer back in close relation, some sparks from the rub between these two may throw a light that will permit us to see both anew" (p. 246).

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