A Lecture series open to all BA and MA students
Sometimes spiritual and omnipotent, sometimes comically powerless and obscene, the gods have been significant figures in theatre from Ancient Greece onwards. How can the divine be physically represented by a human on stage? How should the gods speak? How should they be shown interacting with the human? Should they be shown at all? Concern about the impropriety of representing God lies behind many historical objections to theatre.
This lecture series will explore the representation of divinities in a variety of contexts: the biblical God who motivates the great Mystery Cycles of medieval drama; the humanist God who is discussed in secular interludes; the pagan gods who reappear on the stage when early modern drama looks back to the theatre of classical antiquity.
- Enseignant·e: Elisabeth Dutton