| This thesis is a thematic analysis and comparison of Robert Greene's play, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1589) and Andreas Gryphius' play, Cardenio und Celinde, oder ungluckliche Verliebte (1649). The focus of the thesis is on the representation of magic and the occult within these dramas, specifically, on which forms of occult knowledge are presented as acceptable, and which are intolerable.;I broadly use a new historical approach, and examine the plays as didactic tools within the social bounds of Renaissance England and Baroque Germany. To effect this I provide a brief history of magic in chapter one, and then examine the forms of magic each author abhorred. In chapter two, I delve more deeply into the plays, and find that magic was such an inextricable part of life in that era that certain forms of it were tolerated, and perhaps even encouraged. |
