Faith in Shakespeare: Theater and Theology
Religion has returned, after a long hiatus, as a major concern in Shakespeare studies, but a dark and disenchanted view of theology and theater still dominates current scholarship. I will challenge this view on both historical and performative grounds. Eamon Duffy contends that Protestants made iconoclasm “the central sacrament of . . . reform,” but most reformers were not iconoclasts, and they retained their faith in ritual and sacramental efficacy. Communion was grounded in what one called “a confederation of our affections” rather than a metaphysical real presence. Faith, in Shakespeare’s theater, demands a comparable sense of emotional “confederation,” and I propose to explore the sources of that faith.
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