Taylor Examines Shakespeare’s Handling of Religious Differences

BY ROSANNE PELLEGRINI STAFF WRITER

A major new work of literary criticism by Professor Emeritus of English Dennis Taylor is drawing accolades from prominent Shakespearean scholars.

Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Reformation: Literary Negotiation of Religious Difference argues, via the work of English playwright William Shakespeare, the importance of Catholicism as a necessary dialogue partner, with Protestantism and secularism, in Western culture.

Taylor’s book examines Shakespeare’s dramatization of key issues of the Elizabethan Reformation, including the conflict between the sacred, the critical, and the disenchanted, as well as the Catholic, the Protestant, and the secular.

This detailed work of scholarship shows how Shakespeare was negotiating the key religious differences of his time, according to Taylor. Born and raised a Catholic, as most scholars now agree, Shakespeare coped with what he and others experienced as the trauma of the Protestant Reformation. Attending Mass and observing other Catholic rituals were proscribed under severe penalties.

“While many applauded the new Protestantism, many resisted,” Taylor explained. “This fierce cultural war, the source of many cultural wars to come, characterized Shakespeare’s formative years. In response, he sought to imagine possibilities of reconciliation between the Catholic, Protestant, and secular currents of his time.”

Shakespeare’s plays show how all three perspectives are needed if society is to face its intractable problems, providing a powerful model for our own ecumenical dialogues, according to the book’s description.

“Each play creates a fictional form which dramatizes a distinctive form of reconciliation,” Taylor said. “Shakespeare thus provides an important model for modern dialogue which negotiates religious differences without denying them.”

Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Reformation has been hailed as “a magisterial study [and a] rich and indispensable landmark,” by Rev. David Beauregard, emeritus professor of church history at St John’s Seminary. Hofstra University professor Emeritus of English John Klause described the book as “essential reading for anyone interested in Shakespeare’s relation to the religious, a-religious, and irreligious currents of his time—and beyond his time.” College of the Holy Cross

Upcoming campus music events include a performance on Sunday at 3 p.m. in Gasson 100 by the Boston College Symphony Orchestra, conducted by John Finney. The program includes Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 5” and Barber’s “Violin Concerto, 1st and 2nd movements,” featuring Kristen Lee ’23, winner of the 2022-2023 Boston College Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition.