Shakespeare's Christianity
The Protestant and Catholic Poetics of Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Hamlet
Edited by Beatrice Batson
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Subjects: All Literature, Religion & Literature |
This volume explores the influences of Catholicism and Protestantism in a trio of Shakespeare's tragedies: Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Hamlet. Bypassing the discussion of Shakespeare's personal religious beliefs, Batson instead focuses on distinct footprints left by Catholic and Protestant traditions that underlie and inform Shakespeare's artistic genius.
Preface
--Beatrice Batson
1. Meta-drama in Hamlet and Macbeth
--Peter Milward, SJ
2. Explorers of the Revelation: Spenser and Shakespeare
--David Daniell
3. The Problem of Self-Love in Shakespeare's Tragedies and in Renaissance and Reformation Theology
--Robert Lanier Reid
4. "I Could Not Say ‘Amen'": Prayer and Providence in Macbeth
--Robert S. Miola
5. Hamlet and Protestant Aural Theater
--Grace Tiffany
6. Providence in Julius Caesar
--John W. Mahon
7. Cobbling Souls in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
--Maurice Hunt
Contributors
"These essays, which seek to demonstrate how powerfully Shakespeare's artistry is informed by Christian tradition and culture, are admirably free of narrow doctrinal or exegetical restriction. Taken as a whole, they serve to remind us how thoroughly and with what apparent effortlessness Shakespeare absorbed nuances of the full range of Christian thought and expressed these ideas—often obliquely but nonetheless importantly—in his dramas. As we make our way through these essays, here observing Shakespeare's Catholic sensibility and there his Protestant one, we see the playwright's infinite variety in a light both familiar and critically new."
--Joseph Candido, University of Arkansas
"The cultural air of Elizabethan England was thick with theological discourse, yet Shakespeare has often been read as if he hovered above it all in a sublime cocoon of pure art. This stimulating collection of smart essays demonstrates not only that Shakespeare was theologically informed but also that Christian language and concepts were integral to the design of his major tragedies. The formidable contributors enable us to hear lost echoes of Scripture and sermon, polemic and Prayer Book that reverberate in nearly every scene."
--Peter Leithart, New St. Andrews College
Beatrice Batson (Ph.D. Vanderbilt University) is Professor Emeritus of English at Wheaton College.
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