Adultery, idolatry and the theatricality of false piety in Shakespearean scenes of devotion

Abstract

This study examines Shakespeare's portrayal of devotional practice in Romeo and Juliet, Richard III and Hamlet. The scenes I selected are concerned with the associations between adulterous sexuality, idolatrous religion and perfidious theatricality found in such wide-ranging religious works as official homilies, devotional handbooks, controversialist and anti-theatrical tracts. In engaging with these discourses, Shakespeare seeks to distinguish between the inner truth of the mind and the performance of religious affect, idolatrous and adulterous in its reliance on the outward show of holiness, on visually seductive ornaments and gestures. Shakespeare's portrayal of false piety reveals a commitment to the epistemology of the moderate reformed church. Yet its ultimate commitment, I believe, lies elsewhere. There is a peculiar anti-theatrical sentiment in his suspicion towards the theatrically-inflected religious spectacle, and I argue that this anti-theatricalism serves the interests of the theatrical profession. In representing “the harlotte a false Church” as fundamentally theatrical, Shakespeare's plays ultimately do not seek to locate that false church within the spectrum of confessional practices negotiated in the public sphere of his day. They seek to dissociate theatre from religion.