The Catholicism of Shakespeare's Plays

by Peter Milward

The subject of Shakespeare's own religion has been little discussed until recently. The prevailing impression has been that almost nothing is known of the poet's life, and consequently that no light can be shed on the plays by consideration of his beliefs. However, it is now increasingly accepted, on the basis of sound historical research, that Shakespeare had a strongly Catholic religious background and may well himself have been a recusant. In The Catholicism of Shakespeare's Plays, Fr. Peter Milward examines the traces of Shakespeare's Catholic influences within the plays themselves, and argues convincingly that they are best understood as the works of a playwright whose outlook was formed by the Catholic faith to which he remained attached, and who was seriously concerned by the contemporary persecution of the Catholic Church in England. He draws attention to many Catholic allusions in the plays not the subject of previous comment. The book concludes with a presentation of the historical evidence for Shakespeare's own Catholicism and recusancy, including an account of the 1999 "Lancastrian Shakespeare" Conference, at which new material was presented linking the poet with Catholic households in Lancashire, and possibly even with the Jesuit martyr St. Edmund Campion.

Genres: Catholic, Religion, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Father Peter Milward, SJ was a Jesuit priest and literary scholar.

He was educated at Wimbledon College, entering the Society of Jesus in 1943 at the age of 18. He went on to study Classics and English Literature in Heythrop College and Campion Hall, Oxford.

In Oxford he made a point of attending the lectures of C. S. Lewis and the meetings of the Socratic Club.

In 1954 he was sent to Japan, where he learned the Japanese language and completed his study of Theology. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1960.

Milward joined the Department of English Literature at Sophia University in 1962. In time he became vice-chairman of the Renaissance Institute at Sophia University, and editor of the Institute's Renaissance Monographs. He was the first director of the university's Renaissance Centre, opened in 1984

Outside Japan, he was best known to academics as a specialist in Renaissance literature who, largely on the basis of research in the Huntington Library, compiled two fundamental aids for the study of religion in early modern England: Religious Controversies of the Elizabethan Age (1977) and Religious Controversies of the Jacobean Age (1978). Milward was also a book reviewer for Monumenta Nipponica. He was one of the leading proponents of the view that Shakespeare was a crypto-Catholic, and he wrote regularly for the St. Austin Review.

Reviews

[Jimmy]

Great (but brief) look at seven of Shakespeare's plays. The author makes an excellent argument that the plays were written from a Catholic perspective.

[Amanda Witt]

This book examines the possibility that Shakespeare was a Catholic and therefore hid some things in his plays.
Each play is described in detail with relevant scenes and people around Shakespeare are described too.