The Bible on the Shakespearean Stage: Cultures of Interpretation in Reformation England ed. by Thomas Fulton and Kristen Poole

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Bible on the Shakespearean Stage: Cultures of Interpretation in Reformation England ed. by Thomas Fulton and Kristen Poole Lieke Stelling (bio) The Bible on the Shakespearean Stage: Cultures of Interpretation in Reformation England Edited by Thomas Fulton and Kristen Poole Cambridge University Press, 2018. xvi + 304 pp. $99.99 hardcover. This volume marks a compelling new step in the analysis of the early modern English literary exploration of religion. The body of research on religious themes in early modern literature, and notably in Shakespeare, is vast, but, as this collection of fine essays demonstrates, far from exhaustive. If the majority of studies have concerned themselves with questions as to which parts of scripture were being alluded to in the literary culture of the Protestant Reformation, this volume considers how literary works were interested not so much in citing as in examining specific problems of interpreting the Bible, which were at the core of the Reformation. Thus, one of the threads that runs through the chapters is the deceptive understanding of literal and figurative interpretation as antithetical. In addition, the contributions discuss, through a Shakespearean lens, the wider social, theological and textual ramifications of biblical hermeneutics in relation to other important sites and forms of interpretation, including sermons and sermonizing, translation, topography and material aspects of the Bible. The first chapter, by Bruce Gordon, lays the groundwork for the volume by offering an extensive discussion of biblical production, translation, scholarship and dissemination in the age of Shakespeare. He does so by carefully tracing continental debates on and developments in approaches to translation from the languages of the Bible into Latin and vernacular tongues, and relating these issues to the production and use of Bibles in England, notably the Geneva and Bishop’s Bible. Aaron T. Pratt, remaining [End Page 210] on the topic of translation, zooms in on the question of which versions of Protestant Bibles Shakespeare and his contemporaries consumed, making the paradoxical and intriguing observation that translation is in fact less, and paratext more helpful in answering this question than is often assumed. Jay Zysk opens a new section that consists of four chapters and is dedicated to “Reformation reading practices in the theater” (49). Focusing on Measure for Measure, Zysk addresses Angelo’s mentioning of “chewing God’s name” in relation to John 6 and to the heated controversy around the issue of tran-substantiation (51). Zysk shows how the play presents the distinction between the literal and figurative reading of the Eucharist as far from clear-cut, and, more importantly, as far from trivial, but a matter of life and death. Kristen Poole, in the subsequent chapter on Hamlet, further elaborates on the issue of early modern Protestant “literalism” (71) and expounds the linguistic and theological significance of amphibology and the pun. She notes that aspects of a great deal of Hamlet’s puns bear similarities to structures of Protestant allegory in contemporary sermons. In addition, she shows that the figure of Hamlet personifies an early modern conception of the self that was shaped by the Bible in terms of its textual content as well as its material form. Beatrice Groves sheds fresh light on the moment of Henry IV’s decease in the so-called Jerusalem chamber, and his ironic observation that he always thought he would die in the Holy Land. She convincingly explains that this moment, when read in a context in which England was often typologically interpreted as the Holy Land, is closer to fulfillment than is often admitted. Tom Bishop, in the final chapter of this section, turns to the slippery concepts of “reading” (103) and “studying” (105) scripture, from the fruitful vantage point of the speech of the imprisoned Richard of Bordeaux (and former King Richard II) in Pomfret Castle. Section three, on the interplay between biblical forms and other genres, is opened by Adrian Streete’s insightful contribution about the interrelationships between classical Roman Stoic and biblical understandings of lamentation. These are brought together, Streete shows, in Shakespeare’s most gruesome play—Titus Andronicus—and inform the tensions within the identities of the tragedy’s lamenting protagonists. Hannibal Hamlin problematizes biblical allusions in Pericles (and, to a...