Shakespeare's Religious Allusiveness: Its Play and Tolerance (review)

Maurice Hunt argues successfully against the categorization of Shakespeare's plays as Protestant or Catholic. Shakespeare's Religious Allusiveness presentsShakespeare as engaged in artful, complex analysis of religious issues, especially the means of personal transformation and the nature of providence. In some plays, Hunt finds, Shakespeare juxtaposes Roman Catholic and Protestant doctrines in ways that tend to promote a degree of tolerance; other plays endorse a particular theological position, but always one that is moderate rather than puritanically severe.

Hunt's chapter on The Two Gentlemen of Verona concludes that Proteus's reformation results from repentance rather than penance and thus conforms to the Protestant paradigm of salvation by faith rather than works. Simultaneously, the play presents Roman Catholic motifs in ways that sometimes lead us to admire their beauty. Prominent among the Catholic elements is the play's description of Julia's pilgrimage of desire in terms of the Catholic theology of martyrdom. Her self-sacrifice makes Proteus's seemingly miraculous reformation possible. A similar tolerance for different theological positions emerges from the two parts of Henry IV and Henry V, in which the reformation of Henry V's character reflects Protestant values: "Redeeming lost or wasted time . . . mainly by serious productive workfor the benefit of one's material life and soul as well as for the commonwealth became a hallmark of Tudor Protestantism" (24). Paradoxically, however, the emphasis on the miraculous character of the victory at Agincourt seems Catholic. Hunt's emphasis on Shakespeare's effort to reconcile elements of Catholic and Protestant doctrine continues in his discussion of All's Well that Ends Well, an interpretation based on an analogy between the role of merit in winning salvation and the role of merit in winning romantic love. In suggesting that God, not she, deserves credit for curing the king (II.i.150–56), for example, Helena articulates a vision of the relation between divine inspiration and human merit that might be acceptable to both Catholics and Protestants.

Twelfth Night, Hunt believes, contrasts alternative Protestant views of providence. Moderate Protestants stressed that God works through secondary causes, such as the natural forces that cast Viola on the shore of Illyria, and, more importantly, Viola herself, who is favored by Providence because she acts charitably. In contrast, Malvolio's view of Providence is that it works immediately for the benefit of the elect — namely himself. Hunt argues persuasively that"Shakespeare is not so much intolerant of a kind of Puritan Providence, as he is bent upon dramatizing its narrowness so as to make another, more expansive kind of providence attractive" (87).

Hunt's interpretation of Othello is likely to be received as the most controversial in this study. Many interpreters have cast Desdemona as the good angel and Iago as the devil in a morality play that evokes the Old Religion. Interestingly, Hunt suggests that this interpretation is an oversimplification promoted by characters within the play — notably Othello — who are attempting to absolve themselves of guilt. An alternative interpretation is that Desdemona's terrible suffering implies that she is not protected by the special Providence reserved for the elect; though martyrs among the elect also suffer unjustly, they display an assurance of their salvation that Desdemona lacks. For Hunt, this horrific treatment of predestination in the play may be designed to "make playgoers better appreciate the grace of a liberal Providence" (118) promoted by theologians such as Hooker.

Hunt's "Coda" emphasizes that Shakespeare is not naïve in thinking that we can easily create unity within Christendom, or even within Protestantism. Yet Shakespeare encourages us nonetheless to cultivate a degree of tolerance, and he shows "empathy for the human condition in its frequent inability to do so" (130).

Thoroughly documented and informed by detailed knowledge of doctrinal issues current in Shakespeare's culture, Shakespeare's Religious Allusiveness: Its Play and Tolerance deepens our understanding of the subtle and complex ways in...