Shakespeare's Religious Allusiveness complicates debates about whether Shakespeare's plays are fundamentally Protestant or Catholic in sympathy, challenging analyses that either find Protestant elements consistently undercutting Catholic motifs or, less often, discover evidence of the playwright's endorsement of Catholic doctrine and customs. Rather, Maurice Hunt argues that Shakespeare's syncretistic method of incorporating both Protestant and Catholic elements into his plays was singular among early modern English playwrights at a time when governmental and social tolerance of Protestantism in the theatre was high and criticism of stereotyped Catholicism was correspondingly rampant in drama. In-depth discussions of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, the Second Henriad, All's Well That Ends Well, Twelfth Night, and Othello reveal how Shakespeare allusively integrates Reformation Protestant and Roman Catholic motifs and systems of thought. This book sheds new light on the playwright's knowledge of and interest in Elizabethan and Jacobean religious debates over the nature of spiritual reformation, the efficacy of merit for redemption, and the operation of Providence. It will appeal not only to Shakespeare scholars but to those interested in the cultural history of the Reformation.

An important contribution to studies in literature and religion, The Divine Face in Four Writers traces the influence of Christian and Classical prototypes in ideas and depictions of the divine face, and the centrality of facial expressions in characterization, in the works of William Shakespeare, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Hermann Hesse, and C.S. Lewis. Maurice Hunt explores both the human yearning to see the divine face from post-Apostolic time to the 20th century, as reflected in religion, myth, and literature by writers such as Augustine, Shakespeare, Hardy and Dostoyevsky, as well as the significance of the hidden divine face in writings by Spenser, Milton, Hesse, and Lewis. A final coda briefly detailing Emmanuel Levinas's system of ethics, based on the human face and its encounters with other faces, allows Hunt to focus on specific moments in the writings of the four major writers discussed that have particular ethical value.

A collection that includes a lengthy introduction describing historical trends in critical interpretations and theatrical performances of Shakespeare's play; 20 essays on the play, including two written especially for this volume (by Maurice Hunt and David Bergeron).

Shakespeare's Religious Allusiveness complicates debates about whether Shakespeare's plays are fundamentally Protestant or Catholic in sympathy, challenging analyses that either find Protestant elements consistently undercutting Catholic motifs or, less often, discover evidence of the playwright's endorsement of Catholic doctrine and customs. Rather, Maurice Hunt argues that Shakespeare's syncretistic method of incorporating both Protestant and Catholic elements into his plays was singular among early modern English playwrights at a time when governmental and social tolerance of Protestantism in the theatre was high and criticism of stereotyped Catholicism was correspondingly rampant in drama. In-depth discussions of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, the Second Henriad, All's Well That Ends Well, Twelfth Night, and Othello reveal how Shakespeare allusively integrates Reformation Protestant and Roman Catholic motifs and systems of thought. This book sheds new light on the playwright's knowledge of and interest in Elizabethan and Jacobean religious debates over the nature of spiritual reformation, the efficacy of merit for redemption, and the operation of Providence. It will appeal not only to Shakespeare scholars but to those interested in the cultural history of the Reformation.

Series Information:
Shakespeare Criticism

An important contribution to studies in literature and religion, The Divine Face in Four Writers traces the influence of Christian and Classical prototypes in ideas and depictions of the divine face, and the centrality of facial expressions in characterization, in the works of William Shakespeare, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Hermann Hesse, and C.S. Lewis. Maurice Hunt explores both the human yearning to see the divine face from post-Apostolic time to the 20th century, as reflected in religion, myth, and literature by writers such as Augustine, Shakespeare, Hardy and Dostoyevsky, as well as the significance of the hidden divine face in writings by Spenser, Milton, Hesse, and Lewis. A final coda briefly detailing Emmanuel Levinas's system of ethics, based on the human face and its encounters with other faces, allows Hunt to focus on specific moments in the writings of the four major writers discussed that have particular ethical value.