Believing in Shakespeare
Studies in Longing

A discussion of the connections between believing in Shakespeare's play and a post-Reformation understanding of salvation.

Claire McEachern (Author)

9781108422246, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 19 April 2018

324 pages, 4 b/w illus.
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.1 cm, 0.6 kg

'Written in an engaging style, sparkling with astute observations and humorous aperçus, … Many are the times the reader can be grateful for McEachern's recognition of us, as she strives to guide us through the complicated terrain of early modern belief.' Rana Choi, Renaissance Quarterly

This ground breaking and accessible study explores the connections between the English Reformation's impact on the belief in eternal salvation and how it affected ways of believing in the plays of Shakespeare. Claire McEachern examines the new and better faith that Protestantism imagined for itself, a faith in which scepticism did not erode belief, but worked to substantiate it in ways that were both affectively positive and empirically positivist. Concluding with in-depth readings of Richard II, King Lear and The Tempest, the book represents a markedly fresh intervention in the topic of Shakespeare and religion. With great originality, McEachern argues that the English reception of the Calvinist imperative to 'know with' God allowed the very nature of literary involvement to change, transforming feeling for a character into feeling with one.

Preface
1. An apology for belief
2. An anatomy of believing
3. Feeling your knowledge 4. Genre, or the tipping point
5. Person 6. Plot – or, the promised end
7. Place
Index.

Subject Areas: Shakespeare studies & criticism [DSGS], Literary studies: plays & playwrights [DSG], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD]