Now reading Clare Asquith's SHADOWPLAY: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare in which she investigates the plays by looking at the religious rules and undertones of the Reformation, Henry 8, Bloody Mary, the Counter Reformation, QE1 -- and basically says that Shakespeare was on the Catholic side. The "Shakespeare as Catholic" question is not a new one, and while some of my favorite scholars dismiss the Bard's religious beliefs as irrelevant, there isn't a Catholic among us (or at least me) who doesn't feel some sense of triumphalism in this speculation. (It's like when Stephen Colbert makes insider Catholic jokes on late-night television.) Asquith lands Shakespeare squarely into the Protestant-Catholic brawl with A Midsummer Night's Dream, which she sees as exposing his split loyalty -- on the one hand to religion (Cat'lic), on the other to his queen (early WASP). That's why all the light-dark, high-low tension in the play. Dark Oberon (Protestant), light Titania (Catholic). Short Hermia (P), tall Helena (C). And yet, and yet, that wicked cunning Shakespeare is so clever that everyone felt validated by the poetry. And we still do. Bless you, Will.
Bless you, Will, indeed, especially since you were writing during a time in England in which Puritanism increasingly dominated Protestantism; and ultimately, after 1642, succeeded in closing the theaters down for almost 20 years. British religious controversies and battles during this period seem only to have enriched Shakespeare's incredible capacity and penchant for allegory and metaphor--as well as for his rich, er, seemingly Catholic sense of liturgy and ritual . . .
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