The Undiscovered Countries: Shakespeare and the Afterlife

Cyndia Clegg

doi:10.3390/rel10030174

Abstract

The multiple uses of religion in Shakespeare’s plays seem to counter each other at every turn. In one respect, though, I have found a surprising consistency. Moments when Shakespeare’s drama imagines the afterlife are moments that lend significant insights into the play’s action or characterization, even though the image of one undiscovered country may differ drastically from another. Across the canon, the afterlife may appear as a place of religious judgment, as in Othello, Hamlet, Merchant of Venice; as a classical Elysium or Hades where the spirit or shadow removes elsewhere (Antony and Cleopatra, Titus Andronicus); as Abraham’s Bosom—a place of rest between death and the Last Judgment (Henry V, Richard III, Hamlet); or an unidentifiable life to come (Measure for Measure, Macbeth, King Lear).

Highlights

The multiple uses of religion in Shakespeare’s plays seem to counter each other at every turn
The Elizabethan articles were passed by Convocation in 1562 but not published until 1571
In Richard III, for example, Queen Elizabeth envisions her dead sons in a middle state that is very like Abraham’s bosom in Henry V—a place between death and judgment: Ah, my young princes! ah, my tender babes!

Summary

But that I did proceed upon just grounds

Given Othello’s Islamic origins and the “Homily Against Adultery’s” praise for the zealous punishment of adulterers, for Othello to believe that Desdemona’s death was on “just grounds” (rather than an act of self-deception or self-justification as many critics see it) lays the ground for his tragedy. Joining Dido to Aeneas, as Antony does, allows him to envision an epic afterlife in Cleopatra’s favor That they have spirits that transcend earthly life is made clear both in Cleopatra’s acceptance of Antony’s death in Act V and in her own suicide. The homily considers the fear of the pain arising from sickness or death and gives comfort to the faithful Christian who is truly penitent for his offenses, that “bodailie death” is “a slepe, wherein mannes senses be as it were taken from him for a season, and yet when he awaketh he is more fresh, hee was when hee went to bedde” (Lv) According to this homily, souls are “separated from oure bodies, for a Season, yet at the generalle resurrection, we shall be more freshe, beautiful & perfecte we be ” In Richard III, for example, Queen Elizabeth envisions her dead sons in a middle state that is very like Abraham’s bosom in Henry V—a place between death and judgment: Ah, my young princes! ah, my tender babes!

If yet your gentle souls fly in the air

That would upon the rack of this tough world