Shakespeare In Love
Book II: Genius
Romeo and Juliet · A Midsummer Night’s Dream · King John · The Merchant of Venice · Henry IV, Part 1 · Henry IV, Part 2 · The Merry Wives of Windsor · Much Ado About Nothing · Henry V
The flowering of Shakespeare’s craft: martyrdom, love, mercy and kingship.
Romeo & Juliet
Juliet is the Son
tragedy, ~1595, 1st published as Quarto
Among the most recognized love stories ever told is the story of a priest's love for Catholics in tyrannical England. To this day, the word Romeo is an almost-synonym for “lover.” And this is due to Shakespeare's story of two star-crossed lovers.
But, in Shakespeare’s day, Romeo meant “pilgrim of Rome.” In other words — a Catholic. Yes, Shakespeare’s famous love story is about a Catholic priest pursuing his beloved in a time when to love the Church was illegal.
“O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?”
And yes, another often utilized literary trope in English literature is to identify the Christ-figure by the initials J.C.. Shakespeare’s genius was to disguise the Christ-figure in the form of a love-struck teenage girl. But this disguise is plain as day, for Romeo sees Juliet and proclaims, “But soft. What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the Sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon.”
Or, as Catholic audiences hear — Juliet is the Son.
In the beginning of Protestant England, these star-crossed lovers are doomed from the start because their families represent the two great houses in England at war with each other, the Royal house (the Capulets) and the Papal house (the Montagues).
The hope of the love story was that, in the death of these lovers, reconciliation would be achieved. In other words, in the martyrdom of Catholic priests and people, the warring houses would reconcile and find peace.
But if the State doesn't reconcile with the Church, the moral of this Catholic tale is that without a Romeo to bring the sacraments to God's people, the body of Christ is no longer present. Once Romeo perishes, his beloved no longer lives. With this allegorical understanding of Shakespeare’s great love story, there is so much more meaning to Catholic audiences in the many love-struck lines uttered throughout the play.
Romeo & Juliet is not simply a love story, but in the hands of the masterful Shakespeare, the story is history, prophecy, and a warning against the evils of tyranny. Yes, the greatest romance story told in England during times of tyranny is a story honoring martyred Catholic priests. O Romeo, O Romeo.
Two households, both like in dignity, in fair verona, where we lay our scene, from ancient grudge to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. from forth the fatal loins of these two foes a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life, whose misadventured piteous overthrows doth with their death bury their parents strife. the fearful passage of their death-marked love, and the continuance of their parents’ rage, which, but their children’s end, naught could remove, is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage, the which if you with patient ears attend, what here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
a tale of religious liberty
Comedy, ~1595, 1st published as Quarto
Another gorgeous and genius comedy that addresses the theme of religious liberty. In fact, in the first scene Shakespeare highlights what’s at stake for Catholics in England.
Athenian law states the father tells his daughter who to marry. English law states the Queen tells Catholics who they marry. English law states Catholics must become Anglican and wed themselves to the Anglican church. Yes, the Queen demands all Catholics forsake the faith of their fathers, apostatize, and become part of the State church. According to English royalty, that was the duty of every Englishman, to take the Oath of Supremacy and forsake vows to the King of the Jews and Lord of the Universe. But beware, to take the Oath of Supremacy is to break our word to Christ, our eternal king and beautiful bridegroom.
But though this play starts with a severe set-up scene, have no fear, this is a comedy by Shakespeare. So, hilarity strikes through various storylines. One interesting plot point, almost self-deprecating and autobiographical, is the Fairy Queen falls in love with an actor dressed as a jackass. A key point of historical context, Queen Elizabeth was previously called the Fairy Queen by England’s other famous poets. Shakespeare is definitely poking fun at the powerful and treading dangerous lines with his storylines.
But the main storyline is the one that kicks off the story, a bridegroom (Lysander) and bride (Hermia) denied their right to marry by Athenian law, symbolic of Catholics denied their right to worship according to English law. The couple run off and escape to the forest like so many Catholics who had to escape to the continent. With too many important plot twists to note for a brief summary, let us end with this.
A key twist is when a mischievous fairy, Robin Goodfellow, mistakes his king’s commands and mistakenly puts “love juice” in the eyes of the wrong man. He puts the love potion on Lysander who wakes to see Helena, not his beloved Hermia. Because the love juice provokes love towards the first lady he sees, his true love was turned into a false love. And he begins pursing Helena, who rightly notes something is wrong, and warns Lysander,
“You do advance your cunning more and more. When truth kills truth, O devilish holy fray! These vows are Hermia’s. Will you give her o’er? Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh. Your vows to her and me, put in two scales, will even weigh and both as light as tales.”
Weigh oath with oath, Lysander’s true love turned false is symbolic of the Catholics who broke their oath to Christ in order to take the Oath of Supremacy imposed by English royalty. True love for the true Church was turned into a false love towards the State church. Thankfully, this is a comedy and all’s well that ends well. You’ll have to see the play to see how all is unraveled and true love restored, a story that represents the hope of Catholics in England, who simply wish to worship our Lord in Spirit and Truth.
If we learn to hear Shakespeare, we’ll heed his warnings to love his bride and take our oath to the true Church seriously, and not make false oaths to false churches, even if it is to satisfy evil English royalty. For to defend the Church is to defend the body of Christ, and to defend the Church is to defend his bride.
Let us hear Shakespeare and love Christ’s bride.
And first, as to the cause that you defend — which is no less than the only true and Catholic religion. You defend that Church, which is avouched by all antiquity; confirmed by the blood of infinite martyrs; gainsaid by the heretics of all ages, and most undoubtedly approved by all concurring testimonies. You defend that Church of Rome, to which, as St. Cyprian says, ‘misbelief can have no access, and which can receive no forgery;’ and of which also St. Gregory Nazianzen observes, ‘that old Rome has held the true faith, even from the times of our forefathers, and always retains it, as is fitting for a city that rules the whole world.’ You defend not a church separated from others, neither the dismembered Church of Arius, of Luther, nor of Calvin, which, as they derive their several names from their several founders, so are they known only thereby. You defend the Catholic Church, whose name, as St. Augustin witnesses, no heretic dare for shame lay claim to as proper to his own sect, having by all ages and persons been accounted the known style of men of our profession. You defend a Church founded by Christ, enlarged by his Apostles, impugned by none but infidels and enemies to the truth; whose doctrine can be derived from no late author, convicted of no novelty, affected with no variableness, change or contrariety in essential points of belief. You defend that Church…
— Saint Robert Southwell,
Jesuit priest and martyr,
and cousin to Shakespeare
The Merchant of Venice
In the course of Justice none of us should see salvation. We do pray for mercy.
Comedy, ~1596, 1st published as Quarto
A Eucharistic tale that uses the topic of usury to deepen the Church's teaching on the body and blood of our Savior. In 1570, Pope Saint Pius V excommunicates Queen Elizabeth. Within one year, she changes laws of usury as well as clarifies the Anglican position on the Eucharist, taking severely anti-Catholic positions on both.
And so, Shakespeare uses the insights on usury to help the audience identify the characters — Shylock represents Queen Elizabeth's Anglican position and Antonio represents the Catholic position. By the way, names matter in Shakespeare’s plays, and Antonio is the birth name of Pope Saint Pius V, the same pope who excommunicates Elizabeth.
As the play builds to the marvelous court scene we hear Shylock (like Elizabeth) crave the law to extract the pound of Antonio's fair flesh. Audiences knew this was an obvious allusion to the Catholic priesthood and the treason laws which made killing Catholic priests legal in Elizabethan England.
At the time, and an important historical footnote critical to the play, Anglicans also defined and created a novel teaching on the Eucharist, departing from ancient Catholic teaching. Anglicans believe that the change of the substance of Bread and Wine into the body and blood of our Lord “repugnant to the plain words of scripture” (Article 28. Of the Lord’s Supper). For them, the bread and wine are symbols, not a divine reality.
But, as Flannery O'Connor puts it, “if it’s just a symbol, to hell with it.”
As symbols, well, symbols can be separated and segmented and segregated. Theoretically, the symbol of Christ's body could be the bread and a symbol of his blood the wine, theoretically. In reality, as a divine reality and manna from heaven, as an eternal gift from our Lord, as the true bread of life and cup of salvation, well, the body and blood can't be separated. And that’s the crux of the famous court scene, Shylock is granted flesh but cannot extract it lest he spill one ounce of Christian blood and pay the penalty under the law for spilling Christian blood. Yes, Shakespeare is genius! In one stroke he reminds audiences that earthly laws need to be subject to divine revelation.
Shakespeare's genius shines thru once again by putting a deep theological and Catholic teaching into story. Shakespeare teaches us about the Eucharist in a time and country where the body and blood of our Savior was being denied to his bride. Shakespeare maintains Catholic teaching on the Eucharist — the body and the blood cannot be separated. The fullness of Christ's body, blood, soul, and divinity is present in the consecrated host; the fullness of Jesus's body, blood, soul, and divinity is present in the consecrated cup. The central message of this story proclaims Catholic teaching about the Eucharist.
Let us repeat, Shakespeare chose to center the plot of The Merchant of Venice on Catholic teaching of the Eucharist. To hear Shakespeare is to love Jesus.
The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
O what a goodly outside falsehood hath.
The Merry Wives of Windsor
To six wives he was wedded: one died, one survived, two divorced, and two beheaded
Comedy, ~1597, 1st published as Quarto
Windsor Castle is the site of the Royal court under King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I…
Much Ado About Nothing
For Man is a Giddy THing.
Comedy, ~1598, 1st published as Quarto
Much Ado About Nothing. Nothing or noting, does the play’s title truly mean much ado about nothing? Or, does it mean much ado about noting? That is the question the audience must answer, whether the play is about nothing or noting.
And since through the course of the play an innocent bride is slandered and maligned, a plan devised by a noted villain, well, Shakespeare is teaching audiences to learn how to take note, to properly perceive what’s happening around us. The play is about being rightly attuned to the truth in a time of slander, propaganda, and villainy. And of course, in the hands of our gifted playwright, the Catholic audience knows that an innocent and perfect bride is a symbol and stand in for the bride of Christ, the Church.
In England at the time, with the government slandering the Church, the bride of Christ, and in her stead propping up a State church and forcing obedience to this State church, it is no surprise that a frequent theme of our beloved Catholic playwright are innocent brides wrongly slandered. Spanning the whole of his cannon, from beginning to end, from Titus Andronicus to Much Ado About Nothing to The Winter’s Tale, the theme of an innocent bride wrongly slandered is used to teach and remind his kinsmen and countrymen to note what is happening to the Bride of Christ in England. She is innocent yet slandered, she is spotless yet maligned, she is pure yet wrongly accused. And Shakespeare asks us to note what is truly going on.
And so, in the key wedding scene, when Claudio is to wed Hero, instead of wedded bliss with his beloved, he being deceived by the play’s villain, publicly accuses her of being “an approved wanton” for she talked “with a ruffian at her chamber window” and proceeded with “vile encounters they have had a thousand times in secret.” Today’s slanderers call her the whore of Babylon, similar to an approved wanton.
Of course, Hero was innocent. She was framed by the play’s villain. And yet, Claudio and Don Pedro did not note what truly happened, only believed the insinuations and lies of Don John. Noting that deception was afoot, the Friar Francis offers his wisdom.
Hear me a little,
For I have only been silent so long,
And given way unto this course of fortune,
By noting of the lady. I have marked
A thousand blushing apparitions
To start into her face, a thousand innocent shames
In angel whiteness beat away those blushes,
And in her eye there hath appeared a fire
To burn the errors that these Princes hold
Against her maiden truth. Call me a fool,
Trust not my reading nor my observations,
Which with experimental seal doth warrant
The tenor of my book; trust not my age,
My reverence, calling, nor divinity,
If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here
Under some biting error.
Moments later, the Friar offers the plan.
Pause awhile
And let my counsel sway you in this case.
Your daughter here the Princes left for dead.
Let her awhile be secretly kept in
And publish it that she is dead indeed.
Maintain a mourning ostentation,
And on your family’s old monument
Hang mournful epitaphs and do all rites
That appertain unto a burial.
The purpose of publishing her death was to change slander to remorse.
Marry, this well carried, shall on her behalf
Change slander to remorse. That is some good.
But not for that dream I on this strange course,
But on the travail look for greater birth.
She, dying, as it must be so maintained,
Upon the instant that she was accused,
Shall be lamented, pitied, and excused
Of every hearer. For it so falls out
That what we have we prize not to the worth
Whiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost,
Why then we rack the value, then we find
The virtue that possession would not show us
Whiles it was ours. So will it fare with Claudio.
When he shall hear she died upon his words,
Th’ idea of her life shall sweetly creep
Into his study of imagination,
And every lovely organ of her life
Shall come appareled in more precious habit,
More moving, delicate, and full of life,
Into the eye and prospect of his soul
Than when she lived indeed. Then shall he mourn,
If ever love had interest in his liver,
And wish he had not so accused her,
No, though he thought his accusation true.
Let this be so, and doubt not but success
Will fashion the event in better shape
Than I can lay it down in likelihood.
But if all aim but this be leveled false,
The supposition of the lady’s death
Will quench the wonder of her infamy.
And if it sort not well, you may conceal her,
As best befits her wounded reputation,
In some reclusive and religious life,
Out of all eyes, tongues, minds, and injuries.
Moments later he says,
Come lady; die to live. This wedding day
Perhaps is but prolonged. Have patience and endure.
There is so much more to this great comedy, and I would recommend you watch, read, or hear it. But what is written today should be enough to note the important theme often seen not only in Shakespeare but in the world, that the bride of Christ is at once spotless yet slandered, true yet lied about, pure yet maligned. Shakespeare wrote many comedies for his country so that they would learn to note the truth and may come to belief in Christ. Or, as Shakespeare writes, “Serve God, love me, and mend.”
THird Reason: The nature of the Church.
At hearing the name of the church the enemy has turned pale. still he has devised some explanation which i wish you to notice, that you may observe the ruinous and poverty-stricken estate of falsehood. he was well aware that in the scriptures, as well of prophets as of apostles, everywhere there is made honourable mention of the church: that she is called the holy city, the fruitful vine, the high mountain, the straight way, the only dove, the kingodm of heaven, the spouse and body of christ, the ground of truth, the multitude to whom the spirit has been promised and into whom he breathes all truths that make for salvation; her on whom, taken as a whole, the devil’s jaws are never to inflict a deadly bit; her against whom whoever rebels, however much he preach christ with his mouth, has no more hold on christ than the publican or the heathen. Such a loud pronouncement he dared not gainsay; he would not seem rebellious against a church of which the scriptures make such frequent mention: so he cunningly kept the name, while by his definition he utterly aboslished the thing, he has depectied the church with such properties as altogether hide her away, and leave her open to the secret gaze of a very few men, as though she were removed from the senses, like a platonic idea.
— Saint Edmund Campion, 10 Reasons (1581)