The Shakespeare Sermon (1879-1900): Shakespeare the Poet and Shakespeare the Dramatist

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article focuses on how the Shakespeare sermons delivered from 1879 to 1900 in Holy Trinity Church (Stratford-upon-Avon) participated in the nineteenth-century debates on whether Shakespeare’s plays were meant to be read or put on stage. It contends that these sermons gradually show a theatrical turn in the interpretation of Shakespeare’s production as they present them not only as “sacred poetic texts” to be read alongside the Bible, but as “sacred incarnational dramas”, interpreted in the light of the Romantic notion of “Shakespeare creative sympathy” and written to be watched and performed on stage. The sermonic focus on the public staging of Shakespeare’s plays is closely related to a significant theatrical turn in the history, first, of the Shakespeare’s birthday festival with the opening of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in 1879 and, second, of English preaching, which became more socially involved due to the rise of liberal Broad Church positions.