[siunevada]

Third Earl of Southampton - Romeo?

Elizabeth Vernon - Juliet?

According to author Clare Asquith, the words used by the subversive Shakespeare in his plays and poems disguised a hidden pro-Catholic message.

Sunburn: The sun represented divinity, and so sunburn denotes closeness to God. Shakespeare described himself as 'tanned' in Sonnet 62.

Turtle dove: A traditional image for the apostles, used to signify those who remained faithful in the face of persecution.

Nightingale: The story of Philomela, who was turned into a nightingale, was an image of the desecrated church and its covert protests.

Red rose: A term used by Catholics for their 'old, beautiful' religion.

Dark: The new, Protestant religion, associated with black print and sober dress.

Five: Devotion to the five wounds of Christ led to patterned emblems on the banners borne against the new regime. Shakespeare uses it in the form of flowers, birthmarks or heraldic blazons as a marker of Catholicism.

[1rudeboy]

bttt for later

[TotusTuus]

Clare Asquith's book sounds like it would be an interesting read. Thanks for posting.

[JulieRNR21]

Fascinating post....makes me want to read her book.

BTW....a few years ago I visited what is left of Glastonbury Abbey.

[Accygirl]

There was a book out last year called Will in the World, which while not going as far as this book, does suggest that Shakespeare was exposed to some of the Catholic "underground." This type of thinking is on the cutting edge in Shakespeare scholarship.

BTW, thanks for posting about the book. I'm a Shakespeare fanatic and will probably end up buying it.

[Ann Archy]

OMG! How Fascinating!!! Thank you!

[jocon307]

This is very interesting. I wonder if she's really correct, I've always heard that Shakespere was just a slave to the Tudors. Interesting to think he might have been a closet cath-o-leek.

[Ann Archy]

Can someone e-mail Hugh Hewitt about this info?? His prof friend David Allen White (?), teaches Shakespeare at the US Naval Academy and is fascinating to listen when he's on Hugh's show.

[Ann Archy]

Her book, Shadowplay will be a must-buy!

[SuziQ]

The book does sound interesting, but I'd read something about Shakespeare being a 'closet Catholic' a few years ago.

[okie01]

Russian authors and playwrights have always been recognized as written to be understood by two separate audiences on two different levels.

Why was this insight not applied to Shakespeare before now?

[Capriole]

So how does this connect to the current, widely-held view that the Shakespeare canon was written by Edward de Vere, the poet and nobleman, rather than the uneducated Will Shakespere? De Vere wasn't a closet Catholic, was he?

[jordan8]

Old Willie was a Fenian, eh? Oops, wrong rebels.

[Billthedrill]

Henry VIII had the abbey razed, its priceless fixtures destroyed, and its abbot, Richard Whiting, hanged, disembowelled, and boiled — in that order.

OK, Hank was just a little cranky there.

There are numerous references to contemporary political affairs in Shakespeare, particularly in the history plays, and some of them aren't particularly subtle. One that is, IMHO, is the character of Shylock in the Merchant of Venice. He's a Jew, yes, but the issues of his progeny's marriage out of religion were fairly rare in Elizabethan England...for Jews, that is, but not for Catholics.

An intriguing case. It will be fun to see what the author has made of it.

[Junior]

I've always loved Shakespeare for the sex and the violence, the double entendres (Mercutio's dying words, for instance), and the humor.

Basically, he wrote rip-roarin' good stories.

[SunkenCiv]

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