Shakespeare and Religion

This book sets Shakespeare in the religious context of his times, presenting a balanced, up-to-date account of current biographical and critical debates, and addressing the fascinating, under-studied topic of how Shakespeare's writing was perceived by literary contemporaries, whose priorities were more obviously religious than his own. It advances new readings of several plays, including Hamlet, King Lear and The Winter's Tale, and draws on under-exploited contemporary analogues, ranging from conversion narratives, books of devotion and polemical pamphlets to manuscript drama and emblems. This study describes a writer whose language is saturated in religious discourse but whose invariable practice is to subordinate religious matter to the aesthetic demands of the work. For Shakespeare, as for few of his contemporaries, the Judaeo-Christian story is something less than a master narrative.

[This] constitutes the most sophisticated account of Shakespeare and religion that I have encountered. It is the work of a sharp and distinctively original intelligence., Shakespeare and religion is a hot topic these days ... Anyone wanting to know more about all this could well start with Alison Shell’s excellent survey...

Alison Shell is Professor of English at University College London, UK, and currently runs the English Department’s MA in English: Shakespeare in History, and sits on the steering committee for the UCL Centre for Early Modern Exchanges. She is an editor for the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies’ series ‘Catholic and Recusant Texts in Early Modern England’. She reviews for the Times Literary Supplement, the Church Times and a number of academic journals.