CRITICISM

Brett, Julia. “‘Grace is grace, despite of all the controversy’: Measure for Measure, Christian Allegory, and the Sacerdotal Duke.” Ben Jonson Journal 6 (1999): 189-207.

Provides an extensive review of religious and political readings of Measure for Measure.

Diehl, Huston. “‘Infinite Space’: Representation and Reformation in Measure for Measure.” Shakespeare Quarterly 49, no. 4 (winter 1998): 393-410.

Maintains that in Measure for Measure Shakespeare appropriated Calvinist theories of representation, epistemology, judgment, and reformation to explore the nature of his dramatic art and legitimate the stage.

Gardner, Helen. “Shakespearian Tragedy.” In Religion and Literature, pp. 61-89. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971.

Asserts that Shakespeare's tragedies comprise unique expressions of his imaginative response to centuries of Christian thought and tradition.

Geller, Lila. “Cymbeline and the Imagery of Covenant Theology.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1800 20, no. 2 (spring 1980): 241-55.

Argues that the covenant motif is the central unifying principle of Cymbeline, suggesting that the play's themes and dramatic action replicate the contract between God and man that leads to salvation.

Greenblatt, Stephen. “Shakespeare and the Exorcists.” In After Strange Texts: The Role of Theology in the Study of Literature, edited by Gregory S. Jay and David L. Miller, pp. 101-23. University: University of Alabama Press, 1985.

Examines the relation between King Lear and A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures (1603), Samuel Harsnett's attack on the Catholic practice of exorcism. Greenblatt contends that, particularly through the agency of Edgar as Poor Tom, the play endorses Harsnett's central argument that the notion of demonic possession is fraudulent and that exorcism is a form of theatrical illusion.

Hunter, G. K. “Shakespeare and the Church.” In Shakespeare's Universe: Renaissance Ideas and Conventions, edited by John M. Mucciolo, pp. 21-8. Aldershot, England: Scolar Press, 1996.

Asserts that although it is evident that Shakespeare was thoroughly conversant with Catholic vocabulary and sensitive to its historical reverberations, it cannot be determined, on the basis of the attitudes represented in his plays, whether he was a Catholic or a Protestant—or even whether he cared deeply about the doctrinal differences between the two churches.

Kaula, David. “‘Let Us Be Sacrificers’: Religious Motifs in Julius Caesar.” Shakespeare Studies 14 (1981): 197-214.

Suggests that Christian allusions in Julius Caesar obliquely reflect sixteenth-century religious controversies and imply Shakespeare's skeptical view of religious extremism—whether Protestant or Catholic. Kaula calls particular attention to Cassius's characterization of Caesar as a virtual demon or Antichrist, Antony's similarly propagandistic portrait of him as the savior of Rome, and Brutus's vision of the assassination as a sacramental action.

———. “Hamlet and the Image of Both Churches.” Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 24, no. 2 (spring 1984): 241-55.

Links the juxtaposition of polar opposites—especially Christ and Antichrist—found in Revelation and in sixteenth-century Protestant polemical literature to the oppositions featured in several apocalyptic passages in Hamlet.

Keefer, Michael H. “Accommodation and Synecdoche: Calvin's God in King Lear.” Shakespeare Studies 20 (1988): 147-68.

Perceives a darkly ironic association between Calvin's conception of God and the dramatic world of King Lear. Emphasizing Calvin's apprehension of God's will as absolute and utterly incomprehensible, Keefer reads Shakespeare's tragedy as a bleak representation of the chasm separating natural law and divine providence.

Knapp, Jeffrey. “Preachers and Players in Shakespeare's England.” In Preachers and Players in Shakespeare's England, edited by Christopher Ocker, pp. 1-27. Berkeley: Center for Hermeneutical Studies, 1995.

Evaluates the anticlericalism of Shakespeare's history plays, tracing the progression of Shakespeare's increasingly dark representation of English bishops from 1 Henry VI to Henry V.

Lewis, R. W. B. “Shakespeare's Pericles.” In Literary Reflections, pp. 28-43. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1993.

Observes that although the religious dimension of Pericles is chiefly expressed in pagan terms, the play's miraculous conclusion alludes to the Christian humanist conception of grace.

Lynch, Stephen J. “Sin, Suffering, and Redemption in Leir and Lear.” Shakespeare Studies 18 (1986): 161-74.

Argues that despite its pagan setting, Shakespeare's Lear is more deeply concerned with spiritual issues than is its source: the ostensibly Christian True Chronicle Historie of King Leir. Lynch maintains that Lear's sins are more heinous than his predecessor's, his suffering more extreme, and his redemption more thorough and profound.

Maguin, Jean-Marie. “The Anagogy of Measure for Measure.” Cahiers Élisabéthains 16 (October 1979): 19-26.

Finds that the key to the spiritual or mystical significance of Measure for Measure is the representation of Isabella and Angelo as religious archetypes. Maguin suggests that it is Isabella’s betrothal to Christ that rouses the devil in Angelo and compels him to desecrate that which is pure.

Marx, Steven. “Holy War in Henry V.” Shakespeare Survey 48 (1995): 85-97.

Calls attention to some similarities between biblical descriptions of holy war and the complex representation of war, politics, and religion in Henry V.

Matheson, Mark. “Hamlet and ‘A Matter Tender and Dangerous.’” Shakespeare Quarterly 46, no. 4 (1995): 383-97.

Argues that Hamlet subscribes to the Renaissance concept of Christian humanism, which, with its emphasis on reason, represents a rejection of the medieval Catholic precepts espoused by the Ghost. However, the critic maintains that in the final scene the prince expresses a new-found belief in both the reliability of individual conscience as a basis for action and in the range and power of providence—an attitude that links him with radical Protestantism.

Muir, Kenneth. “The Advantages and Disadvantages of Secularity.” In Parallel Lives: Spanish and English National Drama 1580-1680, pp. 211-23. Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1991.

Maintains that the principal difference between the golden age of drama in Spain and England is that Spanish playwrights were invariably Catholics writing for a Catholic audience, while English playwrights wrote for a secular theater and a religiously diverse audience. Muir outlines the impact of religious orthodoxy on the work of the Spanish dramatist Calderón and compares this with the way Shakespeare's freedom from doctrinal constraints allowed him to express his characters' convictions on the basis of dramatic logic—without revealing his own beliefs.

Nelson, Timothy G. A. “The Fool as Clergyman (and Vice-versa): An Essay on Shakespearian Comedy.” In Jonson and Shakespeare, edited by Ian Donaldson, pp. 1-17. London: Macmillan, 1983.

Calls attention to the complementary and contradictory roles of pious fools and farcical priests in Shakespeare's comedies. Nelson's discussion focuses on Sir Hugh Evans in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Touchstone, Feste, and Olivia's priest in Twelfth Night, Lavache in All's Well that Ends Well, and the Friar in Much Ado about Nothing.

Poole, Kristen. “Saints Alive! Falstaff, Martin Marprelate, and the Staging of Puritanism.” Shakespeare Quarterly 46, no. 1 (spring 1995): 47-75.

Documents Falstaff's links to Sir John Oldcastle, a fourteenth-century antagonist of religious orthodoxy, and to “Martin Marprelate,” the imaginary author of late sixteenth-century tracts that ridiculed the established church.

Rees, Joan. “Falstaff, St. Paul, and the Hangman.” Review of English Studies n.s. 38, no. 149 (February 1987): 14-22.

Regards St. Paul's epistle to the Ephesians, with its warnings of dire consequences for those who do not observe restraint and sobriety in every aspect of their lives, as a discreet subtext of 1 and 2 Henry IV.

Richmond, Hugh M. “Richard III and the Reformation.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 83, no. 4 (October 1984): 509-21.

Asserts that Shakespeare's references to traditional religious topics and vocabulary in Richard III do not discredit religion but heighten the audience's awareness of it. Richmond also compares Richard's unflinching insight into his own depravity to the Puritan propensity for pitiless self-examination.

Schwindt, John. “Luther's Paradoxes and Shakespeare's God: The Emergence of the Absurd in Sixteenth-Century Literature.” Modern Language Studies 15, no. 4 (fall 1985): 4-12.

Places Shakespeare's tragic perspective in the context of the view of the human condition developed by Martin Luther and his contemporaries. Schwindt does not claim that Luther's theology directly influenced Shakespeare, but he does suggest that it foreshadows the dramatist's tragic vision of a world where the only way to endure is to abandon reason and turn to faith.

Slights, Camille Wells. “The Politics of Conscience in All Is True (or Henry VIII).” Shakespeare Survey 43 (1991): 59-68.

Reads Henry VIII as a complex interrogation of Protestant reliance on individual conscience rather than external authority to resolve moral questions.

Vitkus, Daniel J. “Turning Turk in Othello: The Conversion and Damnation of the Moor.” Shakespeare Quarterly 48, no. 2 (summer 1997): 145-76.

Maintains that Othello draws on early modern anxiety about Turkish imperialism as well as on stereotypes linking Islam with violence, tyranny, and religious conversion, and suggests that the Moor's suicide firmly establishes his identity as an infidel.

Waddington, Raymond B. “Lutheran Hamlet.” English Language Notes 27, no. 2 (1989): 27-42.

An explication of Hamlet's “diet of worms” speech (IV.iii.19-25) as an allusion to the 1521 Edict of Worms, which condemned Martin Luther as a heretic. Remarking on the parallels between the Danish prince and the leader of the Protestant Reformation—particularly their shared traits of profound melancholy and obsessive concern with the depravity of human nature—Waddington considers the possibility that Shakespeare modeled Hamlet after Luther.

Watson, Robert N. “Othello as Protestant Propaganda.” In Religion and Culture in Renaissance England, edited by Claire McEachern and Deborah Shuger, pp. 234-57. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Describes a subliminal Christian allegory in Othello whose purpose is to parody the Catholic theology of salvation through good works and thereby strengthen the Protestant loyalties of his original audience.

Willis, Paul J. “‘Tongues in Trees’: The Book of Nature in As You Like It.” Modern Language Studies 18, no. 2 (summer 1988): 65-74.

Examines the religious function of the Forest of Arden in As You Like It as a version of the book of nature: that is, as a text analogous to the scriptures in revealing the glory of God.

Wittreich, Joseph. “Image of That Horror’: The Apocalypse in King Lear.” In The Apocalypse in English Renaissance Thought and Literature, edited by C. A. Patrides and Joseph Wittreich, pp. 175-206. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984.

Explores the implications of apocalyptic motifs, images, and ideas in King Lear. The play's apocalyptic framework does not support or discredit either Christian or non-Christian readings, Wittreich asserts, but it does enhance Lear's representation of sacred and secular history.

———. “Angling in the Lake of Darkness.” In Image of that Horror: History, Prophecy, and Apocalypse in King Lear, pp. 3-13. San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1984.

The opening chapter of a book-length treatment of King Lear that approaches the play from the perspective of the Book of Revelation in particular and the prophetic tradition in general. Wittreich contends that in its terrifying evocation of the Last Judgment, Lear represents the climactic expression of Shakespeare's view of history as a recital of all the circumstances of human tragedy.

Womersley, David. “Why Is Falstaff Fat?” Review of English Studies n.s. 47, no. 185 (1996): 1-22.

Argues that on the eve of the battle of Agincourt in Henry V, the king becomes aware of his spiritual unworthiness, rejects Catholic theology and practices, and submits to the will of God.