SoS #33 | Alec Ryrie

Podcast at https://speakingofshakespeare.buzzspr.... Thomas Dabbs speaks with Alec Ryrie, FBA, of Durham University about the relationship between Reformation religion and Shakespeare and Marlowe. In this talk Alec reflects on drama and on emotion in Protestantism during the 16th and 17th centuries in England and also on purgatory, ghosts, souls, atheism, and church ritual.

Alec is a historian of Protestant Christianity in general and of religion in early modern England and Scotland in particular. He has written extensively on the English Reformation and the history and impact of Protestantism in England and Scotland and across the globe. His most recent book is ‘Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt.’

He has spoken on the cultural, social, political and emotional history of religion and on other subjects, including faith and doubt; martyrdom, violence and religious warfare; magic and deception; moderation and radicalism; childhood religious experience; and liturgy and prayer. Alec is also a reader (lay minister) in the Church of England and serves as a Gresham College Professor of Divinity.

Gresham College Lectures:
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/speakers/pr...
Alec Ryrie on YouTube: Alec Ryrie's Gresham Lectures

SEGMENTS
00:00:00 - Intro
00:02:20 - Hamlet: Purgatory and ghosts
00:08:40 - Prayers for souls, The fates of bones
00:15:10 - Death, doubt, the fates of souls
00:20:00 - Doubt and belief, doubt and unbelief
00:22:55 - Atheism and rage, Christopher Marlowe, Faustus
00:31:15 - Emotion and doubt; Luther, weaponizing skepticism
00:39:14 - Shakespeare’s caution, and incautiousness, volatility  
00:42:10 - Church rites, law, and stage portrayals
00:58:45 - Religious reform unwittingly promoting the stage
00:51:00 - Sermons as dramatic performance, Latimer
00:56:10 - Closing remarks