Read book Larry D. Bouchard - Tragic Method and Tragic Theology : Evil in Contemporary Drama and Religious Thought TXT, MOBI, FB2
9780271026190 English 0271026197 The book moves in a nonreductive way between literary and theological criticism to show how drama and religious thought discern the experience of evil. ""Tragic method"" refers to how tragic art functions as inquiry; ""tragic theology"" refers to how drama and theology render in thematic or symbolic form certain irreducible dimensions of evil and negativity. Bouchard defines no single tragic method or any single view of evil but searches for the distinctive interplay of tragic method of theology in each dramatist. The work opens by scrutinizing certain important interpretations of Greek tragedy. Paul Ricoeurs interpretation of ""the Wicked God and the Tragic Vision"" receives major focus, as does Sophecles, who as a tragedian dramatized the action of inquiry and interpretation. Bouchard then examines Augustines views of evil and sin, Reinhold Niebuhrs critique of the ironies of history, and Tillichs conceptions of the demonic. By interpreting tragedy in terms of sin or the effects of sin, each theologian resists implications in his own thought pointing to a less resolvable tragic theology. And yet these theologians also contribute very creative understandings of the irreducible character of evil and tragic experience. Substantive and original readings of three playwrights are offered: Rolf Hochhuths tragedy of vocation, The Deputy, Robert Lowells trilogy of American historical blindness, The Old Glory, and Peter Shaffers dreams of tragic awareness and accountability in Equus and Amadeus, revealing new permutations of the irreducibility of evil in contemporary Christian and Jewish religious thinkers who may be helpful in this task, and concludes with a description of the experience of perplexed thought, self-critical in view of tragedys witness to irreducibility of evil. Larry D. Bouchard is a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia.
9780271026190 English 0271026197 The book moves in a nonreductive way between literary and theological criticism to show how drama and religious thought discern the experience of evil. ""Tragic method"" refers to how tragic art functions as inquiry; ""tragic theology"" refers to how drama and theology render in thematic or symbolic form certain irreducible dimensions of evil and negativity. Bouchard defines no single tragic method or any single view of evil but searches for the distinctive interplay of tragic method of theology in each dramatist. The work opens by scrutinizing certain important interpretations of Greek tragedy. Paul Ricoeurs interpretation of ""the Wicked God and the Tragic Vision"" receives major focus, as does Sophecles, who as a tragedian dramatized the action of inquiry and interpretation. Bouchard then examines Augustines views of evil and sin, Reinhold Niebuhrs critique of the ironies of history, and Tillichs conceptions of the demonic. By interpreting tragedy in terms of sin or the effects of sin, each theologian resists implications in his own thought pointing to a less resolvable tragic theology. And yet these theologians also contribute very creative understandings of the irreducible character of evil and tragic experience. Substantive and original readings of three playwrights are offered: Rolf Hochhuths tragedy of vocation, The Deputy, Robert Lowells trilogy of American historical blindness, The Old Glory, and Peter Shaffers dreams of tragic awareness and accountability in Equus and Amadeus, revealing new permutations of the irreducibility of evil in contemporary Christian and Jewish religious thinkers who may be helpful in this task, and concludes with a description of the experience of perplexed thought, self-critical in view of tragedys witness to irreducibility of evil. Larry D. Bouchard is a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia.