‘DRAMA OF AN INFINITELY SUPERIOR NATURE’: HANDEL'S EARLY ENGLISH ORATORIOS AND THE RELIGIOUS SUBLIME

Abstract

IN 1740, John Lockman described the oratorio first and foremost as 'drama', but one 'of an infinitely superior nature' because of its sacred theme.' In the twentieth century, many British and American Handel scholars have not given this contemporary assessment, one not unique to Lockman, the credence that is due to it. Promoting images of Handel as opera composer and quintessential man of the theatre, these musicologists have largely disregarded or made too little of the religious elements of English oratorio, giving priority, instead, to its dramatic qualities.2 By creating such a dichotomy between devotion and drama, they have tended to ignore the integral role of religion in eighteenth-century culture and hence to misrepresent the meaning of oratorio in its original context. However, recent endeavours to reconstruct the intellectual frame of mind of eighteenthcentury audiences have begun to remove these conceptual blinkers -the products of twentieth-century values -and have permitted a more sensitive perception of the