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Shakespeare, Religion & Politics (The Church & the nation…

- - - - Shakespeare's plays rarely address that they are often set in a Catholic past.
  - - - person's rank should be clear from appearance.
  - - - communal generation through romantic coupling affirms caritas-based communion urged by official texts.
    - - kings insisting on divinely authorised rule as civil order disintegrates around them.
      - most successful kings display ability to sanction their own reigns. (Realpolitik)
  - - - 'us-versus-them' paradigm of patriotic feeling
      - juggled with internal dissent between countries & Machiavelli characters
- - - - vulnerable to human feeling.
      - Elizabeth humanised the powerful, styling herself as mother or spouse of her people.
      - James I appealed this to unite two nations.
    - - sympathetic human qualities
      - represents ruthless aspects of human nature & how it is worsened by presumptions of absolute political power.
- - - - sought preaching that would 'prick the conscience'
  - - - relationship between actions & feelings?
      - Representations between outsides & insides?
      - Are people what they seem to be, or does the inner man dissent from the representation he presents to the world?
      - When an actor speaks words, to what extent do they transform his audience?
- - - - Protestants: they are unworthy creatures who are accepted with gratitude & relief.
        
        Comedies: saving force of divine grace was liberating
        
        Tragedies: predetermined damnation; prospect for salvation brought introspective dimension of suspense & anxiety about human value.
        
        Macbeth: if he is fated to sin, is his seizing his fate or a mere pawn? Why does he have ethical sensibility if he was predetermined to sin?
      - Catholics sought to do as much as possible to eradicate it