William Shakespeare's Religion

William Shakespeare's Religion

Life

• Plays
• Collaborations
• In performance

Poems

• Sonnets
• Style

Influence

• Reputation
• Timeline of criticism

Speculation

• Authorship question
• Religion
• Sexuality

Portraits

Works

• Bibliography
• Chronology of plays

Knowledge of Shakespeare's religion is important in understanding the man and his works because of the wealth of biblical and liturgical allusions, both Protestant and Catholic, in his writings and the hidden references to contemporary religious tensions that are claimed to be found in the plays. The topic is the subject of intense scholarly debate. There is no direct evidence of William Shakespeare's religious affiliation; however, over the years there have been many speculations about the personal religious beliefs that he may have held, if any. These speculations are based on circumstantial evidence from historical records and on analysis of his published work. Some evidence suggests that Shakespeare's family had Catholic sympathies and that he himself was a secret Catholic; although there is disagreement over whether he in fact was so, fewer scholars now maintain the former consensus position that he was a member of the established Anglican Church.

Due to the paucity of direct evidence, general agreement on the matter has not yet been reached. As one analysis of the subject puts it, "One cannot quite speak of a consensus among Shakespeare scholars on this point, though the reluctance of some to admit the possibility of Catholicism in Shakespeare's family is becoming harder to maintain."

However Father Thomas McCoog SJ, the archivist of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, takes a sceptical line on the question of Shakespeare's supposed Catholic sympathies, saying that "the quest for such proof has progressed from a demiconfessional cottage industry to a non-sectarian semicircus".