The Victorian Cult of Shakespeare
Bardology in the Nineteenth Century

How and why did Victorian culture make Shakespeare into a literary deity and his work into a secular Bible?

Charles LaPorte (Author)

9781108496155, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 5 November 2020

260 pages
24 x 16 x 2 cm, 0.5 kg

'… this is a book of considerable value in making available texts long overlooked, allowing readers to place them within the larger frames of Victorian clerisy and Shakespearean studies.' Stuart Sillars, Modern Language Quarterly

In the Victorian era, William Shakespeare's work was often celebrated as a sacred text: a sort of secular English Bible. Even today, Shakespeare remains a uniquely important literary figure. Yet Victorian criticism took on religious dimensions that now seem outlandish in retrospect. Ministers wrote sermons based upon Shakespearean texts and delivered them from pulpits in Christian churches. Some scholars crafted devotional volumes to compare his texts directly with the Bible's. Still others created Shakespearean societies in the faith that his inspiration was not like that of other playwrights. Charles LaPorte uses such examples from the Victorian cult of Shakespeare to illustrate the complex relationship between religion, literature and secularization. His work helps to illuminate a curious but crucial chapter in the history of modern literary studies in the West, as well as its connections with Biblical scholarship and textual criticism.

1. Shakespearean sermons and other pious texts
2. The harmonies and beauties of devotional Shakespeare volumes
3. The sonnets and the messiah
4. The authority of the (missing) author
5. Shakespearean clerisies and perfect texts
Conclusion. Concealed wonders and choice treasures.

Subject Areas: Shakespeare studies & criticism [DSGS], Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF], Literature: history & criticism [DS], Literature & literary studies [D]