230343 Devils and Witches in Early Modern English Drama (S) (WiSe 2014/2015)

Hardly anyone in early modern Europe doubted that the Anti-Christ was busily trying to tempt Christian souls to damnation in order to enlarge his hellish kingdom. But there was lively controversy about his powers and methods, about what exactly constituted witchcraft and whether magic actually worked. Clergymen, lawyers, doctors, playwrights, Protestants and Catholics, cityfolk and countryfolk voiced their own views and warnings on the subjects of the undead, in spells, charms, love potions, maleficium and the devil's power to deceive those who are weak.

Although learned and popular beliefs about the devil, magic and witchcraft overlapped, they were by no means identical. We will try to follow the scholars' debate (in which no lesser a person than King James I himself participated) by reading extracts from treatises and legal proceedings, but our main primary reference material are stage plays that discussed demonology and witchcraft on the public stage for a popular audience: the playhouse is our cultural-historical point of reference for the negotiation of magic and witchcraft beliefs in early modern Britain.

Literaturangaben

Texts:
Dr Faustus, A-Text, in: Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus and Other Plays: Tamburlaine, Parts I and II; Doctor Faustus, A- and B-Texts; The Jew of Malta; Edward II (Oxford World's Classics), ed. David Bevington and Eric Rasmussen, Oxford, 1998.

N. B. It is essential that you use THIS edition of Doctor Faustus because it gives uncollated versions of the 1604 and the 1616 texts ("A- and B-texts"). The edition is available in the uni library and also new and second-hand at amazon.de.

Thomas Dekker, John Ford and William Rowley, The Witch of Edmonton (1621), ed. Arthur F. Kinney, (New Mermaids series), London, 1998

It is recommended that you buy this edition new or second-hand at amazon.de. The play is also available in a less well-annotated edition in the uni library.