Implicit Soulfulness

A Dramatic Perspective

Authors

  • Roger B Grainger Greenwich School of Theology/N W University, South Africa

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.v17i1.3

Keywords:

soul, hunger, theatre, Faustus, spirituality, implicit religion

Abstract

The sociological study of religion has established that people do in fact behave in ways which are implicitly religious, without their actually belonging to an explicitly religious organisation of any kind. What remains to be investigated, however, is why they do this. This paper aims to make a contribution to such an enquiry by using theatre to argue that these individuals are drawn in the direction of religious belief by the inalienable characteristics of the human soul—particularly its voraciousness and flexibility.

References

Bailey, Edward Ian. 2001 The Secular Faith Controversy: Religion in Three Dimensions. London: Continuum.

Brecht, Bertolt. 1966. Parables for the Theatre: Two Plays. Second edition. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Revised translation by Eric Bentley of Der gute Mensch von Sezuan und Derkaukische Kreidekreis.

Byron, Baron George Gordon. 1940. Byron, Poetry and Prose. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. 1817. Biographia Literaria or Biographical Sketches of my Literary Life and Opinions (2 Vols.). Rest Fenner.

Ellis, Havelock, ed. 1893. The Best Plays of the Old Dramatists: Christopher Marlowe. London: T Fisher Unwin.

Foucault, Michael. 1977. Language Counter-memory Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. Translated from the French by Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry Simon. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Jung, Carl Gustav. 1961. Modern Man in Search of a Soul. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred. 1907. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Voltaire. 1769. Les Trois Épîtres [Épître à Boileau, ou Mon Testament; Épître à L’auteur du Nouveau Livre des Trois Imposteurs; Épître de M. De Voltaire à M. de Saint-Lambert]. Geneva: Cramer.

Published

2014-07-22

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Grainger, R. B. (2014). Implicit Soulfulness: A Dramatic Perspective. Implicit Religion, 17(1), 3-10. https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.v17i1.3