{ "item_title" : "Performing Methodism", "item_author" : [" Brett C. McInelly "], "item_description" : "Ebook available to libraries exclusively as part of the JSTOR Path to Open initiative.Performing Methodism examines Methodism's contested and seemingly contradictory relationship to the eighteenth-century stage. On its surface, the clash between the Methodists and the theatre seems a mere carry-over from the sixteenth century, when religious authorities questioned the morality of plays and playgoing, and playwrights mockingly responded by portraying their antagonists as sanctimonious and hypocritical. To be sure, the Methodists represented the most outspoken critics of theatrical entertainment during the period, and they raised many of the same arguments in opposition to the stage as their Puritan forebearers. But as conventional as the Methodists' criticism of theatrical entertainment proved, the resulting conflict assumed its own peculiar dynamic as the Methodists effectively mimicked the theatre via their evangelical activity, particularly field preaching, which was often carried out at fairs and markets and in competition with other forms of public entertainment. The anti-Methodists were not wrong in suggesting the Methodists were competitors with whom they wrangled for the privilege of performing for an impressionable public. The Methodists hardly denied their dramatic bent as they exploited theatrical practices and spaces in furthering the Methodist cause at the same time the dramatists seized on Methodist stereotypes and the topicality of Methodism generally for comic and satiric purposes, which contributed to the success and popularity of their productions while shaping the ways Methodism came to signify in eighteenth-century society.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers2.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/80/781/187/1807811875_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "150.00", "online_price" : "150.00", "our_price" : "150.00", "club_price" : "150.00", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "" } }

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