Catholic Bias in Clare Asquith's 2005 book "Shadowplay" (Part 11: Religious Bias in Shakespeare Scholarship)

Clare Asquith’s 2005 book, Shadowplay, is interesting in spite of weaknesses that reviewers have noted. (In the New York Review of Books, one can read James Shapiro's review of her more recent book, whcih mentions Shadowplay, either with a subscription or by registering for free.)
While significant numbers of scholars still cling either to the idea of a Protestant Shakespeare, or of a Shakespeare whose religious allegiances don’t matter, Asquith is among those committed to the idea of of a secretly Catholic Shakespeare who used analogies or coded messages to carefully convey messages that were at odds with or critical of the religious and political status quo. More scholars (like E. A. J. Honigmann and Stephen Greenblatt, mentioned in the blog post here last week) tend to agree with Asquith’s conclusion about Shakespeare’s religious sympathies, but many may question how Asquith arrives there.

[Image via Public Affairs, pubisher of Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefts and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare. Fair use.] 

For A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Asquith assumes the tall and fair-haired Helena is Catholic, the shorter and darker-haired Hermia Protestant. It may be easier to imagine that the feud between Montegues and Capulets in Romeo and Juliet is an analogy for England’s feuding Protestants and Catholics. But is the opposition of Helena’s father to the idea of his daughter choosing her own marriage partner meant to appeal to parents (like Shakespeare himself) who were torn, sometimes on religious grounds, regarding their child's marriage? Perhaps. But was the “code” really so simple as tall-fair Catholics, and short-dark Protestants? I’m not convinced.

Richard Wilson (Secret Shakespeare),
Leah Marcus (Puzzling Shakespeare),
Annabel Patterson (Censorship and Interpretation),
and Marcus Hunt (Shakespeare’s Religious Allusiveness) each envision richer and more convincing ways that Shakespeare seems to have included many veiled and sometimes fragmented topical, political and religious analogies in his plays than Asquith does.

In her reading of Hamlet, for example, Asquith is too focused on Hamlet as reminding early audiences of Philip Sydney, at the expense of many other possibilities (James, Essex, Elizabeth). Some of the layers of possible references may have been included in part to obscure others, Leah Marcus and Annabel Patterson might say.

Asquith is also too dedicated to the idea that the ghost represents the old (religious) order and is therefore Catholic and from purgatory. But just because Catholics believe in purgatory doesn’t mean the ghost can’t be a devil in disguise, even for Catholics.

It is quite possible, as Asquith claims, that Claudius is meant to seem Protestant, especially in his private confession, in prayer, of his sin. But he and the ghost may also evoke memories of Henry VIII both before and after his break from Catholicism, as if Shakespeare not only made composite characters out of various historical figures (as with Prince Hamlet), but may also have split aspects of single historical figures (Henry VIII) into two characters (Claudius and ghost).

Although Asquith’s Catholic and personal biases sometimes get the best of her reasoning, it’s a thought-provoking book.


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Series on Religious (and a few other) Biases in Shakespeare Scholarship:
1. Biases & Assumptions Influence What We Notice, Seek, or Neglect - 11 January, 2022
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2022/01/biases-assumptions-influence-what-we.html

2. Secular/Universal Bias in Shakespeare/Hamlet Scholarship - 18 January, 2022
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2022/01/part-2-factors-contributing-to.html

3. Victors Wrote the Histories of Shakespeare and Francis of Assisi - 25 January, 2022
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2022/01/victors-wrote-history-of-shakespeare.html

4. Biblical Seeds of Secular Shakespeare Bias - 1 February, 2022
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2022/02/biblical-seeds-of-secular-shakespeare.html

5. Catholic Bias in Simon Augustus Blackmore - 8 February, 2022
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2022/02/catholic-bias-in-simon-augustus.html

6. Nietzschean & Christian-Mythical Bias in G. Wilson Knight - 15 February, 2022
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2022/02/nietzschean-christian-mythical-bias-in.html

7. Roland Frye's Protestant Bias - 22 February, 2022
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2022/02/roland-fryes-protestant-bias.html

8. Gatekeeping and Religious Turns in Shakespeare Scholarship - 1 March, 2022
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2022/03/gatekeeping-and-religious-turns-in.html

9. Honigmann, Hammerschmidt−Hummel, and Moses' Shoes - 8 March, 2022
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2022/03/taking-off-shoes-in-presence-of.html

10. Protestant Bias in Arthur McGee's 1987 book, "The Elizabethan Hamlet" - 15 March, 2022
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2022/03/protestant-bias-in-arthur-mcgees-1987.html

11. Catholic Bias in Clare Asquith's 2005 book, "Shadowplay" - 22 March, 2022
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2022/03/catholic-bias-in-clare-asquiths-2005.html

12. Protestant and authoritarian bias in Roy W. Battenhouse - 29 March, 2022
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2022/03/battenhouses-authoritarian-protestant.html



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