Sacramental tempest: a return to literary mystery
Abstract
Early modernity's rise during the seventeenth century in England created a shift in culture
including literary artistic expressions. This paper proposes that the rise of modernity limited the
communicative power of language within literary art due to the overpowering influence of New
Science and empirical explanations of reality. Underpinning the elevation of empirical reality
was the impact of Northern humanism that greatly influenced and empowered the Protestant
Reformation. As a result, the building blocks for secularizing Western Civilization were laid by a
religious movement rooted in scholastic rigor. This paper examines the sacramental ontology of
premodern England in contrast to the early modern influence of the late seventeenth century to
propose that a return to premodern, sacramental examinations of texts provides unique and useful
scholarly conclusions. By examining William Shakespeare's The Tempest, written at the
beginning of the seventeenth century, in contrast to John Dryden's adaptation, written in the
latter half of the seventeenth century, an understanding of modernity's impact on literary
expression and communicative power of language will be conveyed and a path to reenchantment
proposed.
Description
Thesis (M.A.)-- Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dept. of English