Pride Month and Shakespeare's indirect questioning of biblical law in A Midsummer Night's Dream

It is LGBTQ+ Pride Month in the United States[1], a celebration observed at various times of the year by a number of other countries around the globe.

If you were an Elizabethan playwright and poet named William Shakespeare, you may have questioned certain passages of the Bible used by religious authorities to condemn sex between men, and used to justify related punishments of execution.[2] 

Yet in Elizabethan England, one would not have been able to have a play approved for performance by the master of revels if it included a virtuous character who complained about unhelpful and outdated biblical laws.

How might you have challenged such use of the Bible without getting in trouble with authorities?

One could dramatize a conflict stemming from an outdated Roman or Athenian law that is analogous to an outdated biblical law, and in that way, by indirection, make the same point [3]. (I am not the first to notice this.)

Early in the first scene of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream we are presented with Hermia, a young woman in love with Lysander. But her father, Egeus, had already given his consent for Demetrius to marry Hermia.

Egeus invokes Athenian law: If she doesn’t marry Demetrius, he wants his daughter put to death.[4]

Put to death? Extreme? Inhumane? Evil?

Yet the Athenian law allowing a father to have a rebellious child put to death sounds remarkably similar to Leviticus 20:9 and Deuteronomy 21:18-21.[5]

And it so happens that Leviticus 20:9, allowing a death penalty for rebellious children, is not so far from Leviticus 20:11 and Leviticus 18, used in Shakespeare’s time (and by some in our own time) to condemn homosexuals.[6]

By the end of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Demetrius (having fallen in love with Helena) no longer wishes to marry Hermia, Egeus abandons his request to have Hermia put to death for her disobedience, and Duke Theseus allows her to marry Lysander.

One effect is that Shakespeare invites the audience to consider that the mercy of a political authority may be more important than the letter of the law. But perhaps as importantly, Shakespeare also invites audiences to question the wisdom of certain biblical laws, such as those requiring rebellious children and homosexuals to be put to death.

Shakespeare encourages audiences to question the wisdom and humanity of not only Athenian law, but by analogy, similar biblical laws as well, inviting audiences to show compassion, not only for daughters whose only disobedience is being in love, but perhaps also for those whose sexual preferences and lifestyles are celebrated this month in our own time.

What clever and subtle use of the Bible, for Shakespeare to invite audiences to question it.

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NOTES:

[1] Library of Congress on Pride Month: https://www.loc.gov/lgbt-pride-month/

[2] We should note that not all Bible scholars interpret Leviticus as prohibiting all homosexual relations.

See “Seven Gay Texts: Biblical Passages Used to Condemn Homosexuality” by
Robert K. Gnuse, Sage Journals, Volume 45, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1177/014610791557709

In 2018, The New York Times published “The Secret History of Leviticus,” an opinion piece by biblical scholar Idan Dershowitz, which explores the evolution of Leviticus and the strong possibility that homosexuality was not always condemned in the Leviticus texts, as in the translations with which Shakespeare was familiar.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/21/opinion/sunday/bible-prohibit-gay-sex.html
Also available here:
https://www.academia.edu/37294841/The_Secret_History_of_Leviticus_New_York_Times

For another treatment of the issues, see the following PBS Frontline article, “Does the Bible NOT Oppose Homosexuality,” by Robbin Scroggs: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/assault/bible/doesnotoppose.html

See also “What does the Bible say about Homosexuality” by Myles Markham, from the Human Rights Campaign: https://www.hrc.org/resources/what-does-the-bible-say-about-homosexuality

Also see “The Bible Doesn’t Say That Homosexuality is a Sin: An Analysis of the Seven Scriptures
Sometimes Claimed to Refer to Homosexuality,” by Janet Edmonds, September 2016: https://elcvienna.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Booklet-about-Homosexuality-and-the-Bible-Sept.-2016.pdf
 
[3] As Polonius says, “By indirections find directions out” (2.1.73).
All references to Shakespeare's Hamlet are to the Folger Shakespeare Library online version:
https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/hamlet/read/

[4] 1.1.42-46.  All references to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night’s Dream are to the Folger Shakespeare Library online version:
https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/a-midsummer-nights-dream/read/

[5] We might also note that Leviticus 11:9-12 condemns eating shellfish, and Leviticus 11:27 condemns eating pork. In Matthew 5:17-20, Jesus says he didn’t come to change even a “jot” or “tittle” of the law, and his followers must be even more observant than the Scribes and Pharisees, so people in Shakespeare’s time may have thought, no shellfish, no pork.
- Yet in Mark 7:18-23, Jesus taught that such foods (what goes into a person) doesn’t make a person corrupt, but rather, it is the evil thoughts that come out of a person’s heart that make a person unclean. 
- Some in Shakespeare’s time may have wondered: isn’t it evil, to condemn men for loving men, or women for loving women, or either for loving both? Wouldn’t that be evil coming out of people, to condemn such behavior?

[6] In England, sodomy or “buggery” was punishable by death from at least 1563-1861 and justified with such Bible passages. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_for_homosexuality#United_Kingdom

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IMAGES:
From Arthur Rackham’s illustrations for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1908) published by Doubleday, Page & Co. (1908). https://archive.org/details/midsummernightsd00shak/mode/1up?view=theater

Left:
“...where often you and I / Upon faint primrose-buds were wont to lie / Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet”  (Helena and Hermia)
https://archive.org/details/midsummernightsd00shak/page/n34/mode/1up?view=theater

Center:
“Lord, what fools these mortals be!” (Puck) (From Smithsonian Magazine) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/man-who-reshaped-illustration-180964954/

Right:
“...fairies away! We shall chide downright if I longer stay” (Titania)
https://archive.org/details/midsummernightsd00shak/page/n64/mode/1up?view=theater

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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 explore how the Bible and religion influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
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