Protestant Bias in Arthur McGee's 1987 book, "The Elizabethan Hamlet" (Part 10: Religious Bias in Shakespeare Scholarship)
Arthur McGee’s book, The Elizabethan Hamlet, was first published in 1987, 14 years before Stephen Greenblatt’s Hamlet in Purgatory. The two books could not be more different in their conclusions, although they share the idea that scholarship should be based in part on solid historical research. Greenblatt strives to recover manifestations of Roman Catholic purgatory traditions and their meaningful role, more than merely a means for priests to coerce people to part with their money. McGee does not. [Images via Yale University Press. Fair use.] McGee assumes - that the ghost is a demon in disguise, the official Protestant view. - that the ghost wore roses on his shoes, perhaps with hairy satyr legs to signal to audiences that he’s from hell, not purgatory. - that early audiences were so thoroughly Protestant, they would not have tolerated a play that left open the possibility that the ghost might be from purgatory. - that as there are many examples of anti-Catholic plays of...