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Rereading Prayer as Social Act: Examples from Shakespeare
Author(s) -
Sterrett Joseph
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
literature compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.158
H-Index - 4
ISSN - 1741-4113
DOI - 10.1111/lic3.12060
Subject(s) - prayer , tempest , hamlet (protein complex) , reading (process) , literature , criticism , psychology , philosophy , art , religious studies , linguistics
Literary criticism is increasingly interested in prayer as a cultural and literary mode. This article proposes a theoretical framework for reading prayer as a performance, as an act governed by community conventions with effects in the social world. Drawing upon groundbreaking work by Marcel Mauss and Hans Georg Gadamer, and citing critical reading of Shakespeare's King Lear , The Tempest and Hamlet , I show how prayer can be read as an act defined by real and imagined audiences while retaining individual self expression.

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