Introduction: Shakespeare and Religious Change

Abstract

Shakespeare and Religious Change is a collection of essays on the relationship between Shakespearean drama and the changing religious culture of post-Reformation England. As such, the book addresses the critical ferment of what has been one of the busiest and at times most contentious areas in Shakespeare studies over the past decade. Towards the end of the twentieth century, the study of Shakespeare and religion gained new life when the historical turn took a religious turn. Debora Shuger’s often-quoted remark that ‘religion during this period supplies the primary language of analysis’ appeared in the new historicism’s flagship monograph series and served as a manifesto for this development.¹ Although one still encounters an occasional claim that Shakespeare’s plays illustrate a ‘strangely timeless’ Christianity, and although a theoretical approach to spirituality has begun to challenge historicism’s hegemony, approaches to religion in Shakespearean drama since Shuger wrote have remained predominantly historicist in method, seeking to understand the relationship between these plays and the shifting landscape of post-Reformation English religion.²