The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Religion

A wide-ranging yet accessible investigation into the importance of religion in Shakespeare's works, from a team of eminent international scholars.

Hannibal Hamlin (Edited by)

9781316624234, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 28 March 2019

324 pages, 3 b/w illus.
22.7 x 15.3 x 1.8 cm, 0.48 kg

'This comprehensive, rich book is well worth study … Highly Recommended' N. Birns, Choice

Nothing in Shakespeare's England was as important as religion. Questions of faith informed everything from history and politics to love and family, work and play, good and evil, suffering and sacrifice, and ultimately life and death. Every one of Shakespeare's plays is rich in allusions to the Bible, church rites including baptism, communion, marriage, and burial, and a host of religious beliefs. This Companion provides an essential grounding in early modern religious history and culture and the ideas that Shakespeare returns to throughout his career. Chapters dedicated to close-readings of individual plays or groups of plays span both the complex and variegated Christian beliefs explored in Shakespeare's work, as well as the treatment of Judaism, Islam and classical paganism. Authored by an international team of eminent scholars and featuring an Afterword by Rowan Williams, this Companion is the most comprehensive and incisive guide to the topic that students will find.

1. Shakespeare and the Elizabethan and Jacobean Church Thomas Betteridge
2. Shakespeare: biography and belief Andrew Hadfield
3. The Renaissance Bible Hannibal Hamlin
4. The drama of the liturgy Daniel Swift
5. Popular religion Phebe Jensen
6. Grace and conversion Helen Smith
7. Love Claire McEachern
8. Sin and evil Adrian Streete
9. Compassion, affliction, and patience: biblical and religious allusion in Shakespeare Gary Kuchar
10. Providence and divine right in the English histories Jean-Christophe Mayer
11. The Merchant of Venice, Jews, and Christians M. Lindsay Kaplan
12. Religious and political impasses in Measure for Measure Jennifer R. Rust
13. Remembering the dead in Hamlet Brian Cummings
14. Othello and Islam: Shakespeare's noble moor, staging blackness, and the performance of religious difference Daniel Vitkus
15. Poetic creation in an apocalyptic age: King Lear and the making and the unmaking of the world Kristen Poole
16. Immortal longings in Shakespeare's Rome Robert S. Miola
17. Sacred and theatrical miracles in the romances Tom Bishop
Afterword: finding the remedy Rowan Williams.

Subject Areas: Shakespeare studies & criticism [DSGS], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD], Literature: history & criticism [DS]