Shakespeare and the Culture of Christianity in Early Modern England

by Dennis Taylor (Editor), David N. Beauregard (Editor)

Overview

The question of Shakespeare’s Catholic contexts has occupied many scholars in recent years, and their growing body of work has been enriched by revisionist accounts of the Reformation society and culture in which he lived and worked.

This innovative book brings together sixteen original essays by leading scholars who examine Shakespeare’s works in light of this new scholarship: their goal is to explore a possible interpretive consensus from Protestant, Catholic, and secular perspectives.

Offering stimulating new approaches to traditional problems in Shakespeare studies, the essays provide a fully developed picture of Shakespeare’s relation to the Reformation—in the light of newly unearthed religious contexts. From the monastic life in Measure for Measure to Puritanism in Hamlet , the essays offer fresh understandings of such themes as majority cultures, national self-definition, hidden trauma, and concealed identity.

Contributors: Dennis Taylor, Richard Dutton, Katharine Goodland, Clare Asquith, Jean-Christophe Mayer, Timothy Rosendale, Gary D. Hamilton, Regina M. Buccola, John Klause, John Freeman, R. Chris Hassel Jr., Jennifer Rust, David Beauregard, Maurice Hunt, Lisa Hopkins, Richard Mallette, and Paula McQuade.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823222834
Publisher:	Fordham University Press
Publication date:	11/11/2003
Series:	Studies in Religion and Literature , #6
Edition description:	2
Pages:	451
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Dennis Taylor is Professor of English at Boston College, and has written extensively on religion and literature.

David N. Beauregard , a priest of the Congregation of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary, is Professor of English and Dean of Studies at Our Lady of Grace Seminary, Boston.

Table of Contents

	Introduction: Shakespeare and the Reformation	1
1.	The Comedy of Errors and The Calumny of Apelles: An Exercise in Source Study	26
2.	"Obsequious Laments": Mourning and Communal Memory in Shakespeare's Richard III	44
3.	Oxford University and Love's Labour's Lost	80
4.	Shakespeare's Religious Background Revisited: Richard II in a New Context	103
5.	Sacral and Sacramental Kingship in the Lancastrian Tetralogy	121
6.	Mocking Oldcastle: Notes Toward Exploring a Possible Catholic Presence in Shakespeare's Henriad	141
7.	Shakespeare's Fairy Dance with Religio-Political Controversy in The Merry Wives of Windsor	159
8.	Catholic and Protestant, Jesuit and Jew: Historical Religion in The Merchant of Venice	180
9.	This Side of Purgatory: Ghostly Fathers and the Recusant Legacy in Hamlet	222
10.	Wittenberg and Melancholic Allegory: The Reformation and Its Discontents in Hamlet	260
11.	The Accent and Gait of Christians: Hamlet's Puritan Style	285
12.	Shakespeare on Monastic Life: Nuns and Friars in Measure for Measure	311
13.	Helena and the Reformation Problem of Merit in All's Well That Ends Well	336
14.	Paris Is Worth a Mass: All's Well That Ends Well and the Wars of Religion	369
15.	Blasphemous Preacher: Iago and the Reformation	382
16.	Love and Lies: Marital Truth-Telling, Catholic Casuistry, and Othello	415
	Notes on Contributors	439
	Index	443

Editorial Reviews

This generous collection fruitfully extends the discussion of Shakespeare's religious context

Renaissance Quarterly

The volume is more than just Catholic in its reach as it makes room for those who find in the plays evidence of influences from the various protestant thinkers of the day.

Faith & Reason

an epoch-making contribution to our understanding of both Shakespeare in his time and of ourselves in all time.

Religion and the Arts