Vol. 10 (2025): Philosophy of the Sensus Communis. The Public, the Individual, the Cultural Practices
Dossier: Philosophy of the Sensus Communis. The Public, the Individual, the Cultural Practices

The Sensus Communis and Religion in John Hughes’ The Siege of Damascus (1719)

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  • David Alvarez
David Alvarez
DePauw University, USA
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/ds-15982

Published 2025-12-31

Keywords

  • Sensus Communis,
  • Religion,
  • the Secular,
  • Toleration,
  • Sympathy

How to Cite

Alvarez, D. (2025). The Sensus Communis and Religion in John Hughes’ The Siege of Damascus (1719). Diciottesimo Secolo, 10, 43–52. https://doi.org/10.36253/ds-15982

Copyright (c) 2025 David Alvarez

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

John Hughes’ tragedy The Siege of Damascus (1720) seeks to bridge the divide between east and west, between Islam and Christianity, by advancing an understanding of a sensus communis in terms of sympathy, honor, and mutual respect. I argue that this articulation of a sensus communis relies on how the play conceptualizes ‘genuine religion’ in global terms. It does this primarily by universalizing the project of Anglican clergy to champion Christianity as a civil religion. The play thus points to the importance of enlightenment efforts to reconceptualize religion for a genealogy of the sensus communis.

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