{"title":"‘Your Suit is Granted’","authors":"H. Wilcox","doi":"10.1017/9781108555135.011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108555135.011","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":385757,"journal":{"name":"Prayer and Performance in Early Modern English Literature","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116627733","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘The Spirit of Prayer Inspired’","authors":"N. Reisner","doi":"10.1017/9781108555135.014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108555135.014","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":385757,"journal":{"name":"Prayer and Performance in Early Modern English Literature","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128736866","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Enter Mercury, Sleeping","authors":"C. Preedy","doi":"10.1017/9781108555135.005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108555135.005","url":null,"abstract":"Scenes of prayer are common in early modern drama, often serving a significant theatrical or narrative function. A related, but less remarked, phenomenon is the prevalence of divine messenger figures in the plays of this period. Various Elizabethan and Jacobean dramas feature prophets who deliver supernatural predictions, interpret omens, or read portents; contain allusions to intermediary saints; or even bring good and evil angels onto the stage, as in Christopher Marlowe’s early modern tragedy Doctor Faustus. Among these diverse references, however, one character stands out, as perhaps the most famous of all divine messengers: the Greco-Roman god Hermes or Mercury. Mercury is invoked in numerous plays of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and appears as an on-stage character in several works. Yet despite his fictional popularity, the Mercury of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama is not always the quick-witted deity of classical tradition. Instead, Mercury is frequently represented as an absent, incompetent, or indifferent emissary. While the gods of Greek and Roman mythology were far from infallible, this focus on Mercury’s specific shortcomings as a divine messenger also speaks to more immediate sixteenth-century concerns about the nature of prayer. In particular, the dramatic representation of the messenger-god in late Elizabethan drama seems to express a certain degree of anxiety about the difficulties of communicating with heaven, perhaps in response to on-going contemporary debates about what constituted true or effective prayer: thus The Arraignment of Paris, Dido Queen of Carthage, and Troilus and Cressida all expose Mercury’s failings as an intermediary between mortals and the gods. Originally known in ancient Greece as Hermes, the Greco-Roman god Mercury was remembered in Elizabethan England as the classical patron of thieves, merchants and scholars; a quick-witted trickster famous for his clever ruses, his eloquence, and his otherworldly interest in dreams and the afterlife. Mercury’s name had also become linked in medieval times with the alchemical metal mercury or quicksilver, a central catalyst in transforming base metal to gold. The metal’s alchemical significance shaped corresponding allusions to Mercury in hermetic texts discussing the metaphysical transmutation of the soul, allusions which acknowledge Mercury’s","PeriodicalId":385757,"journal":{"name":"Prayer and Performance in Early Modern English Literature","volume":"55 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122266606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}