Shakespeare stands as a wonderful anomaly. It could be argued that no artist in the history of the Western world enjoys both the critical and popular esteem of Shakespeare. His poems and plays continue to enchant generation after generation; his rich language saturates modern speech—whether we realize it or not.
Academics Squirm at the Question
What accounts for this enduring fascination? How can we explain the beauty of his writing or the power of his imagination?
Perhaps we cannot. Perhaps we must remain silent in the face of genius, simply accepting the precious gift. Yet that answer somehow fails to satisfy scholars and critics. We want to know more—that is, after all, our calling. We want to ask challenging questions, and we expect convincing responses.
Recently, a number of scholars have revisited the question of Shakespeare’s religious impulses. Scholars long ago accepted, perhaps begrudgingly, that religious belief can serve as a powerful stimulant for the creative process. Religious devotion contributes to art, music, and literature in manifold ways. Yet the recent attention given to Shakespeare’s possible Catholicism is not a welcome development for many in the academic community. The dominant voices in that community, the avatars of postmodernism, generally ignore the religious dimension of art while concentrating instead on the holy trinity of race, class, and gender.
Many Shakespeareans ignore the religious dimension of his plays. They believe that Shakespeare was somehow above the pettiness of religious belief. The eminent critic Harold Bloom, author of the best-selling Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, finds the whole question of Shakespeare’s religious commitments laughably irrelevant. Bloom argues that “Shakespeare seems too wise to believe anything” political or religious. He adds, “I am baffled when critics argue as to whether Shakespeare was Protestant or Catholic, since the plays are neither.” According to Bloom, Shakespeare could not have any religious convictions and still remain Shakespeare.
Stephen Greenblatt, the influential founder of New Historicism, has been criticized for his failure to acknowledge the importance of religious belief in Elizabethan literature. New Historicism, unlike the English Renaissance culture it often interprets, tends to have a radically secular perspective. Interestingly, Greenblatt’s most recent book, Hamlet in Purgatory, attempts to explore complex religious questions, but not with a sympathetic imagination. Greenblatt focuses his considerable intelligence on debunking Catholic beliefs rather than trying to understand them.
The turn toward a “Catholic Shakespeare” evidently bothers some professors at Catholic universities as well. Michael A. Mikolajczak, professor of literature at the University of St. Thomas, considers the very question in bad taste: “[I]n my view, this question is not decidable nor even very interesting; and I suspect it of the sin of pigeonholing and perhaps triumphalism.” While Mikolajczak’s obscure theology creates some confusion (what is the sin of pigeonholing?), more disturbing is his bald assertion that scholars interested in the question of Shakespeare’s religious orientation are somehow sinful. His posture reflects a lack of curiosity and a type of intellectual sloth: He finds the question of little interest and therefore others should as well. He seems to hope that if we do not investigate the question, it will simply go away.
Yet scholars and critics of all stripes have long conceded the importance of religious belief in the production of art, literature, and drama. Mikolajczak might perhaps be forgiven for his hostile indifference to the question—he is not, after all, a Shakespearean scholar—but to dismiss, prima facie, the connection between religious belief and imaginative literature smacks of bigotry.
Other more sensible objections exist. For example, Rev. Paul Murray, O.P., notes: “It would not, I think, be helpful to characterize Shakespeare formally as a religious dramatist. The fact is that he chose, by and large, to leave religion alone.” This is half true: Shakespeare was not a religious dramatist. But Father Murray assumes that Shakespeare chose not to address religious issues in a concerted, conspicuous fashion. In fact, the choice was not Shakespeare’s.
Strict laws regulating theater prohibited any explicitly religious or current political events from being represented on stage. No playwright writing for the public during the English Renaissance could be formally considered a religious dramatist. Protestant reformers had recently put an end to the centuries-old tradition of religious drama, including miracle and mystery plays. Yet key questions remain unanswered. Why does Shakespeare make repeated references to Catholicism in his plays? Why would Shakespeare risk his freedom to portray Catholicism in a sympathetic fashion?
Of course, too much emphasis on religion (or politics or sex or philosophy) in Shakespeare may lead to a reductive appreciation of his art: He was, obviously, not writing dramatic homilies. Still, it would be equally unwise to neglect or ignore the conspicuously religious language, themes, and characters found in his plays. Some scholars have contended that Shakespeare incorporated these religious attributes in a strictly !xpnd0universal way, free of any clannish meaning or color. But this position requires one to ignore numerous and repeated references to specific religious practices, especially to proscribed Catholic rituals.
The theory that Shakespeare was Catholic rests on two types of evidence: the archival/historical record and the sentiments culled from his plays. Both sources of evidence have their limitations: The archival record from the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods is far from comprehensive, and ascribing personal convictions to an artist on the basis of his work remains a complicated business. Nonetheless, both sources of information also have been useful.
What History Tells Us
The archival/historical evidence for a Catholic Shakespeare is circumstantial but significant. We do not have a sworn testimony signed by Shakespeare, advertising his religious affiliations. But we do have less direct indications. One could cite, for example, the religion of his mother’s family, the Catholic Ardens, and the spiritual testament signed by his father, John Shakespeare, sometime before the elder Shakespeare’s death in 1601. In the testament, which follows the formula of St. Charles Borromeo’s Last Will of the Soul, John makes a formal profession of his Catholic faith. Both of Shakespeare’s parents appear to have conformed to Catholicism despite the risks to personal wealth, freedom, and life. Although England’s final break with Rome was still within living memory, the Elizabethan government expected outward conformity from all subjects. To make a public vow of Catholicism during this period required great measures of faith and courage.
One could also point out that Shakespeare’s teachers at the Stratford grammar school all had contacts with the “Old Faith.” Simon Hunt, his first schoolmaster, from 1571 to 1575, left Stratford to matriculate at the University of Douai in the summer of 1575 and later become a Jesuit. One of Shakespeare’s classmates from Stratford, Robert Dibdale, abruptly left with Hunt, was also ordained a priest, and was martyred in 1586.
The next two schoolmasters at Stratford were Thomas Jenkins and John Cottom. According to Park Honan, Shakespeare’s most recent biographer, both men “had strong Catholic connections.” Jenkins, if not Catholic himself, had many friends who were; Cottom’s younger brother, Thomas, was, in fact, martyred in 1582 as a seminary priest. Remarkably, all of Shakespeare’s grammar school teachers (if he indeed attended Stratford’s grammar school, as is universally assumed) were active Catholics or had close connections with the “Old Faith.”
Birds of a Feather
Shakespeare’s last will and testament also provides a glimpse into Shakespeare’s life and faith. Although the will itself, like the vast majority of wills drawn up in Jacobean England, follows the current Protestant formula (with no references, for example, to the Blessed Mother or the communion of saints), the document also reveals Shakespeare’s intriguing pattern of friendships with known Catholics.
Of the ten non-family members specifically mentioned in Shakespeare’s will, the religious inclinations of three are not known (Hamnet Sadler, Francis Collins, and Richard Burbage); two were Anglicans (John Hemminges and Henry Condell); and five were Catholic or Catholic sympathizers (Thomas Combe II, William Reynolds, Anthony Nash, John Nash, and Thomas Russell). Obviously Shakespeare continued to remain close friends with recusant Catholics—Catholics cited, fined, or imprisoned for their faith.
The most recent theory to support Shakespeare’s Catholic education comes from Richard Wilson. According to his argument, first made in 1937 and revisited occasionally during the next 50 years, the “William Shakeshafte” who lived with the Catholic Houghton family in Lancashire is really young William Shakespeare from Stratford. This theory got a boost with the recent discovery that John Cottom belonged to the Lancashire gentry, who were relatives of the Houghtons. This possible connection created a significant buzz among students of Shakespeare, leading to a major international conference in July 1999, attended by more than 200 scholars and critics.
It would be mistaken to draw absolute conclusions about Shakespeare’s religious status from his teachers, classmates, friends, and family. It would be equally mistaken, however, to ignore this rich archival record and the rather extraordinary nexus of Catholic friends and acquaintances it reveals. The archival/historical record makes !it abundantly clear that Shakespeare knew and felt comfortable around Catholics. The Old Faith had not disappeared from his life.
Paul J. Voss is professor of English and vice president for academic affairs at Southern Catholic College in Dawsonville, Georgia. He can be reached at pvoss@southerncatholic.org.
This article originally appeared in CRISIS, America’s fastest growing Catholic magazine, and is used by permission.
