Posted on 11/27/2014 7:27:57 PM PST by annalex
On Tuesday, word spread about the discovery of a "first folio" of the works of William Shakespeare [...]. It was uncovered by some industrious librarians in St.-Omer, France, near the city of Calais, at a public library that already boasts possession of an even rarer Gutenberg Bible.
The folio, as the BBC noted, "collects 36 of Shakespeare's 38 known plays for the first time, and was originally printed in 1623, seven years after the playwright's death." As Jennifer Schuessler reported, the folio's unearthing brings the total number of known Shakespeare compendiums to 233.
[...]
...over the past century-and-a-half, based on his works and some biographical plot points, scholars and religious figures have begun to debate Shakespeare's faith. In 2011, the Vatican's official paper offered that Shakespeare "convincingly adhered to the Catholic faith," submitting his inclusion of purgatory in "Hamlet" as part of the evidence.
[...]
While there is no conclusive proof of Shakespeare's Catholicism, the folio's discovery certainly heats things up.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
...It is well known that William Shakespeare did in fact translate a copy of the KJV of the Holy Bible....I own a copy...it is very old and has William Shakespeare clearly listed on the opening page...peace
Possibly. He, after all survived the purges and his works survived. That would not be possible if he had been openly Catholic at the time.
Right, but the reference to purgatory is a part of the plot and Shakespeare presents it as a fact of life, not as some quaint belief of yet-unenlightened Prince Hamlet. Further, the call to revenge is tied to the purgatorial suffering:
I am thy father’s spirit,
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night
And for the day confined to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combinèd locks to part
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fearful porpentine.
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood
...
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
Educated people care, and others should not be posting.
Since 11 c. monasteries existed in Scandinavia, but yes, that is another instance when a distinctly Catholic aspect of life is introduced on stage as a natural resolution for Ophelia.
Me too.
But there were no nunneries in England for the 100 years before shake a spear wrote this, and hardly any for the next 100.
Ergo, purgatory was Elizabethan slang for a pub.
“Kingdom” was slang for a house.
“Horse” was slang for a prostitute.
ergo, My kingdom for a horse.
Every word in Shake a sprrearespeare is slang.
I think that’s how Shakespeare got away with it to a large extent. Though he still walked a tightrope, which undoubtedly was nearly as thrilling to his audiences.
“Catholic in an age of vicious persecution.” I wonder whether that was because of the Spanish threat, undoubtedly a Catholic power aligned with the wishes of the Church.
No, pedantic people and Catholic apologists care. Everyone else figures, "Meh. Who gives a rip?"
I mean, seriously, if the only way you can feel good about yourself and your religion is to drum up some nonsense about Shakespeare being one of yours, then your religion can't be worth all that much.
The religious identity is the defining characteristic of a man. When the man happens to be a genius, his religious identity is a matter of importance to anyone who thinks that Shakespeare is important. I realize that to the modern halfwits it is all “meh”, but I am surprised that someone so uninterested still finds it necessary to insist on his philistine values.
Thank you. I meant to look for earlier FR posts on that but forgot.
LOL. Shakespeare would have been a genius, even had he been an atheist. That he was a genius is in spite of, rather than because of, his (supposed) Catholicism.
Atheist can be a genius, — an evil one. The whole point about Shakespeare is that his personality as it comes through his work is profoundly Catholic Christian, even though a case can be made that the English mentality remained Catholic for centuries after forced conversion to Anglicanism.
Understand that religion makes the man. Atheism, for example, makes the man also, — into an animal, usually.
This topic was posted , thanks annalex.
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