Visions and Faces of the Tragic: The Mimesis of Tragedy and the Folly of Salvation in Early Christian Literature. By Paul M. Blowers

Abstract

According to the preface (pp. vii–ix) this book has been much influenced by the author’s own involvement in Shakespearean drama (a performance of Hamlet in particular), which, in his own words, gave him ‘the artist’s eye, the intuitions of the dramaturge, and the strivings of the director and actor to understand dramatic interpretation and performance from the inside out’ (p. vii). The book draws on these inspirations and is therefore not merely a technical study combining insights from theatre history with patristic, early Christian, and late antique studies, but an oeuvre close to the author’s heart. It is divided into seven chapters. In chapter 1 some more general ‘preliminary considerations’ on ‘tragical vision in early Christian literature’ (pp. 1–6) are followed by reflections on tragedy in Greek and Roman culture (pp. 7–19), its various forms, its forms of reception and interpretation, and its ‘cultural utility’. One section focuses specifically on...