eBook

The idea of the theater in Latin Christian thought

Dox, Donnalee

2004,2009

Overview

This book considers medieval texts that deal with ancient theater as documents of Latin Christianity's intellectual history. As an exercise in medieval historiography, this study also examines biases in modern scholarship that seek links between these texts and performance practices. The effort to bring these texts together and place them in their intellectual contexts reveals a much more nuanced and contested discourse on Greco-Roman theater and medieval theatrical practice than has been acknowledged. The book is arranged chronologically and shows the medieval foundations for the Early Modern integration of dramatic theory and theatrical performance. The Idea of the Theater in Latin Christian Thought will be of interest to theater historians, intellectual historians, and those who work on points of contact between the European Middle Ages and Renaissance. The broad range of documents discussed (liturgical treatises, scholastic commentaries, philosophical tracts, and letters spanning many centuries) renders individual chapters useful to philosophers, aestheticians, and liturgists as well as to historians and historiographers. For theater historians, this study offers an alternative reading of familiar texts which may alter our understanding of the emergence of dramatic and theatrical traditions in the West. Because theater is rarely considered as a component of intellectual projects in the Middle Ages, this study opens a new topic in the writing of medieval intellectual history.

• Publisher: University of Michigan Press,The University of Michigan Press
• Subject: Christian literature, Early / Christian literature, Early - Latin authors - History and criticism / Christian literature, Latin (Medieval and modern) / Christian literature, Latin (Medieval and modern) -- History and criticism / Christianity / Early church, ca. 30–600 / Historiography / HISTORY / History and criticism / History of doctrines / Latin authors / Medieval / Medieval, 500–1500 / Middle Ages, 600–1500 / PERFORMING ARTS / RELIGION / Religious aspects / Rome / Theater / Theater -- History -- Medieval, 500-1500 -- Historiography / Theater -- History -- To 500 -- Historiography / Theater -- Religious aspects -- Christianity -- History of doctrines -- Early church, ca. 30-600 / Theater -- Religious aspects -- Christianity -- History of doctrines -- Middle Ages, 600-1500 / Theater -- Rome -- Historiography / To 500
• ISBN: 9780472025152, 0472025155, 9780472114238, 0472114239