What Was the Religion of Shakespeare?

by M. M. Mangasarian

And wear their brave state out of memory.

Yet this transitoriness of man, instead of diminishing, enhances his value, and makes love, friendship and truth all the more precious. Life would not have been so great a gift, if it were unending. Love, the greatest of all blessings, shines upon the dark brow of death "like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear." It is the thought of death, of separation, which creates attachments and friendships inexpressibly sweet.

Then the conceit of this inconstant stay

Set you most rich in youth before my sight.

Of course there are also many expressions in Shakespeare which a Catholic may cite to prove that Shakespeare was a faithful child of the church, or a Protestant to show that the greatest mind of England was on his side, but the context of Shakespeare, it must be admitted, is unreservedly on the side of the non-supernatural and the rationalistic interpretation of life.

When we come to examine the construction of Shakespeare's plays, we shall find that it is as decisively along rationalistic lines as the atmosphere which permeates them. Gods and ghosts fleet across his stage, but they have no perceptible influence upon the order or drift of events in Shakespeare's world. The center round which Shakespeare makes the universe revolve is—man! This represents a radical departure from theology. The change from the contemplation of God to the study of man is the Renaissance in a nut-shell.

Shakespeare, as the great Renaissance poet, lifted this world into the importance which the next world had usurped, and urged men to reclaim the prerogatives which they had, in fear and servility, deeded away to their gods.

Study, for instance, Romeo and Juliet, and it will be seen that the entire story, beginning with the rosy dawn in which love and youth met, to the noon-day storm which swept the unhappy lovers to their graves, is conceived, created and presented without the remotest reference to a divine providence as a factor in human affairs. Everything happens in a natural way, and from natural causes. Romeo's rashness and Juliet's impatience leave room for no mysteries as to their fate. There may be, or there may not be, a God, but to explain this tragedy it is not necessary either to postulate or to deny his existence. Shakespeare steers clear of the occult powers that are supposed to preside over human destiny, and never once does he cross their paths or enter the circle of their influence. Consider, for example, the conduct of his Romeo and Juliet in the presence of death. Much is made of the death bed scene in religious literature. People are supposed to turn their thoughts heavenward in that hour, and to show anxiety about their souls. It is then, we are told, that a sense of the world to come takes irresistible possession of the mind. The last words of the dying are recalled to show how, upon the brink of the grave, as the earthly sun is sinking, the heavenly lights begin to appear. But Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet confront death without any thought of a future reunion, which is very remarkable considering their youth and their fondness for one another. It almost betrays a deliberate effort on the part of Shakespeare to prevent these ardent lovers, dying ere the budding rose of love had opened, to even dream of a life beyond where they may forever live and love. Nothing could be a clearer indication of Shakespeare's intellectual freedom from both the phraseology and method of theology. Romeo knows of no other paradise than his Juliet, while to the latter, where Romeo is, there is heaven. This is frank, honest, free, but it is not how the Mohammedan, the Christian or the Jewish religions expect the dying to express themselves. Romeo's address to death ignores all revealed religions:

Come, unsavory guide!

Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on