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

Authors

• David Alvarez, DePauw UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-31-2025

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.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.36253/ds-15982

Comments

Copyright (c) 2025 David Alvarez

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

Recommended Citation

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