WHO: Maurice Hunt

WHAT: Macbeth Lecture: In What Sense is Macbeth a Religious Tragedy?

WHEN: Wednesday, Feb. 7, 7-8:30 p.m.

WHERE: Jones Auditorium, Robert and Pearle Ragsdale Center, St. Edward's University

Hunt's major area of interest is Shakespearean studies. He has written numerous books on Shakespeare including Shakespeare's Labored Art and The Winter Tale: Critical Essays both in 1995. The following passage is taken from Hunt's paper entitled, "In What Sense is Macbeth a Religious Tragedy?"

"In the past, commentators interested in early modern English religious issues in Macbeth usually stressed the tragedy's anti-Catholic elements and corresponding Reformation Protestant traits. Nevertheless, any Reformation Protestant reading of Macbeth must contend with … certain Counter-Reformation Catholic motifs."

"This paper speculates about the significance in Macbeth of a … hybrid ‘Protestant/Catholic' artistry in an officially Protestant England. In the course of this speculative argument, I re-describe and re-position in the play a familiar Shakespearean tragic preoccupation with a character who conforms to the early modern English dramatic profile of the scourge of God. In the case of Macbeth, it proves to be not the title figure — but [his nemesis] Macduff."