Shakespeare and Puritans

Jeffrey Knapp suggests that, though Shakespeare was probably raised a Catholic, he chose to conform to the established religion but without taking a high profile at church. In a comment that rings true, Knapp suggests that above all Shakespeare “deplored sectarianism. Shakespeare’s puritanical characters are typically divisive figures, longing for a separation from their moral inferiors.” Still, his critique of Puritanism was muted, and he even hedges on calling them Puritans outright. Malvolio is only a “kind of puritan, and after initially provoking opposition by naming one of his characters after a Protestant hero, John Oldcastle, Shakespeare changed his name to Falstaff.

Knapp suggests that he is “reluctant to preach Christian doctrine seems a mark not of his secularism, as most scholars have claimed, but rather of his fears regarding the potential divisiveness of his religious beliefs.” Knapp finds support for Shakespeare’s stance in, interestingly, the Puritan Richard Sibbes, who argued that keeping faith to ourselves “is of more consequence, than the open discovery of some things we take to be true, considering the weakness of man’s nature is such that there can hardly be a discovery of any difference in opinion, without some estrangement of affection.”

Shakespeare’s comparatively mild opposition to puritanism should be taken together with his portrayal of Catholics, especially Catholic clergy: “Shakespeare’s Catholic bishops and cardinals are more divisive still, sponsoring factiousness on a national and even international scale: the most dangerous of them, the papal legate Pandulph, causes a truce between France and England to be broken and promises sainthood to anyone who assassinates King John.”