Christopher Devlin's Catholic Bias in Hamlet's Divinity (part 13)

Hamlet’s Divinity and Other Essays (Christopher Devlin, 1963) contains two chapters relating to Hamlet as well as a chapter making a case for Shakespeare’s Catholicism. Devlin was a Jesuit priest, and while I was raised Roman Catholic, I find him to be a bit too certain about plucking the heart of the mystery of Shakespeare’s faith. Yet Devlin demonstrates a great knowledge of history and literature, and in a field where for too long Protestants advanced too many of their own assumptions about Shakespeare’s faith, Catholic voices like Devlin’s opposing the status quo played a helpful role.

[Image: Author photo. Hamlet's Divinity and Other Essays by Christopher Devlin (d.1961), with an introduction by C.V. Wedgwood. Published 1963. This book is out of print but still available at libraries and in used copies.]

In his title chapter, “Hamlet’s Divinity” (30-43), Devlin argues that there are various ways he finds divinity to be present in the play. A major element for him is that the ghost expresses “horror” at being murdered by his brother without being able to receive the Catholic sacraments. This seems a bit odd as a claim, to say that divinity is present in the ghost’s claim rather than absent.

Devlin does not go so far as to say that, by asking Prince Hamlet to remember him, the act of remembrance itself evokes the presence, just as the act of remembrance of the faithful breaking bread in Jesus’ memory evokes divine presence.

Devlin seems too certain that the ghost is honest and represents for Shakespeare and the prince a longing for the old faith, neglecting the possibility that, even if Prince Hamlet’s father were Catholic, perhaps the apparition is a demon in disguise?

Regarding the theme of the ghost’s purgatorial “prison house,” Prince Hamlet’s description of Denmark as a prison, and his remark near death that “this fell sergeant, Death, / Is strict in his arrest,” Devlin does a good job linking “sergeant” and prison to Matthew 5:24-6 (Geneva trans.) - and to Catholic arguments for purgatory.

In the chapter “No requiem for Old Hamlet?” (44-50), Devlin expresses his disagreements with Roy Battenhouse’s idea of a pagan ghost. Both Battenhouse and Devlin might do more to recognize the mix of pagan and Catholic elements; Battenhouse is too limited to his Protestant bias, and Devlin by his institutional-Catholic bias. But in general, Devlin makes a good case for the ghost as Catholic, although he does not address whether Shakespeare intended an apparently Catholic ghost to evoke sympathy or disapproval.

Devlin is silent regarding Battenhouse’s claim that in the last scene, Hamlet is a “celebrant” of a “Black Mass” as well as Claudius. Battenhouse makes this claim in an apparent effort to be certain that Hamlet is wrong to kill Claudius. If we read the poison cup and pearl as a “Black Mass,” it would be easy to argue that the celebrant is clearly Claudius, and that Hamlet interrupts it and turns its consequences back against Claudius.

Devlin was also the author of The life of Robert Southwell, poet and martyr (1956);
The psychology of Duns Scotus : a paper read to the London Aquinas Society on 15 March 1950;
Poor Kit Smart (1961), about the life of English poet Christopher Smart (1722-71); and he edited
The sermons and devotional writings of Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1959.

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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. Religious 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

13. Christopher Devlin's Catholic Bias in Hamlet's Divinity - 5 April, 2022
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2022/04/christopher-devlins-catholic-bias-in.html

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Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over another, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to point out how the Bible and religion may have influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
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