Spiritual Shakespeares

Abstract

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in secular materialism, theology, or contemporary theory. That at least is what the present collection sets out so suggestively to show.John D. Caputo (from the Foreword)Readers will find here an engagement with both Shakespeare and spirituality which is intelligent, original, and challengingly optimistic, one which surely succeeds in its wish to 'reinvigorate and strengthen politically progressive materialist criticism'. Jonathan Dollimore (from the Afterword)Spiritual Shakespeares is the first book to explore the scope for reading Shakespeare spiritually in the light of contemporary theory and current world events. Ewan Fernie has brought together an exciting cast of critics in order to respond to the 'religious turn' in recent thought and to the spiritualised politics of terrorism and the 'War on Terror'. Opening a genuinely new perspective within Shakespeare Studies, this volume suggests that experiencing the spiritual intensities of the plays could lead us back to dramatic intensity as such. It tests spirituality from a political perspective, as well as subjecting politics to an unusual spiritual critique. Among its controversial and provocative arguments is the idea that a consideration of spirituality might point the way forward for materialist criticism.

‘Retailed to all posterity’: Post-truth, oral tradition, and the popular voice in Richard III

“…Such beliefs were often seen to be ideologically suspicious -not least in the history plays, which critics typically took to support the Providentialism of the Tudor Myth. 44 The overblown rhetoric of the incoming Richmond is, however, certainly not where Richard III most powerfully discloses its Christian sensibilities. The only distinction between the way Richmond and Richard use Christian theology (and teleology) is that the audience is not given the 'behind-the-scenes' view at the painstaking staging seen in the meta-play of 3.7:…”