Abstracts
Abstract
This article reads Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy within the context of the popular practice of the Prayer Book Communion service contemporary with the play’s performances in Elizabethan playhouses. It stresses the continuities between Kyd’s theatrical appropriation of the Eucharist and a popular conception of the Communion service that emphasizes its role in establishing and affirming public reconciliation, neighbourly concord, and parochial unity. Through an allusion to the Eucharist in Hieronimo’s handkerchief, The Spanish Tragedy deploys the Communion’s penitential, soteriological, and communitarian associations to serve its uniquely theatrical ends. The play’s metatheatrical thematization of representational modalities allows the audience to collectively confront their own sinful desire and then witness their pardon from punishment for that desire at the expense of the onstage representational substitutes.
Keywords:
- Thomas Kyd,
- The Spanish Tragedy,
- Communion,
- Eucharist,
- drama,
- religion
Résumé
Cet article propose de lire La Tragédie espagnole à la lumière de la pratique populaire du service de la communion du Livre de la prière commune, une pratique qui était contemporaine des représentations de la pièce dans les théâtres élisabéthains. Il souligne les continuités entre l’appropriation théâtrale de l’eucharistie par Kyd et une conception populaire du service de la communion mettant l’accent sur son rôle dans la mise en place et le renforcement de la réconciliation publique, de la bonne entente entre voisins et de l’unité au sein de la paroisse. En faisant allusion à l’eucharistie par le truchement du mouchoir de Hieronimo, La Tragédie espagnole convoque les références pénitentiaires, sotériologiques et communautaires qui étaient communément associées à la communion, pour servir ses fins spécifiquement théâtrales. La réflexion métathéâtrale portant sur les modalités de la représentation qui s’esquisse à travers cette pièce permet aux spectateurs de se confronter collectivement à leurs propres désirs coupables, puis de d’assister à leur absolution, aux dépens des personnages qui les représentent sur scène.
Appendices
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