Theatre and Incarnation (Hardcover, 1990 Ed.)

This series of volumes aims to provide an interdisciplinary introduction to the study of literature and religion, concerned with the fundamentally important issues of the imagination, literary perceptions and an understanding of poetics for theology and religious studies, and the underlying religious implications in so much literature and literary criticism. This introduction to the theatre also attempts to offer a meditation on the theatricality of the Incarnation. Arguing that both biblical and dramatic texts should be approached with a theatrical rather than a literary imagination, the author explores theatrical history, looking at plays as diverse as the medieval Cornish "Ordinalia" and Rostand's romantic "Cyrano de Bergerec". At the same time, he observes the comic potential of the Gospel narratives and the affirmation of humanity entailed in the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation.