The Biblical Covenant In Shakespeare
by Mary Jo Kietzman /
2018 / English / PDF
2 MB Download
The theo-political idea of covenant―a sacred binding
agreement―formalizes relationships and inaugurates politics in
the Hebrew Bible, and it was the most significant revolutionary
idea to come out of the Protestant Reformation. Central to
sixteenth-century theology, covenant became the cornerstone of
the seventeenth-century English Commonweath, evidenced by
Parliament’s passage of the Protestation Oath in 1641 which was
the “first national covenant against popery and arbitrary
government,” followed by the Solemn League and Covenant in 1643.
Although there are plenty of books on Shakespeare and religion
and Shakespeare and the Bible, no recent critics have recognized
how Shakespeare’s plays popularized and spread the covenant idea,
making it available for the modern project. By seeding the
plays with allusions to biblical covenant stories, Shakespeare
not only lends ethical weight to secular lives but develops
covenant as the core idea in a civil religion or a founding myth
of the early-modern political community, writ small (family and
friendship) and large (business and state). Playhouse
relationships, especially those between actors and audiences,
were also understood through the covenant model, which lent
ethical shading to the convention of direct address.
Revealing covenant as the biblical beating heart of Shakespeare’s
drama, this book helps to explain how the plays provide a smooth
transition into secular society based on the idea of social
contract.
The theo-political idea of covenant―a sacred binding
agreement―formalizes relationships and inaugurates politics in
the Hebrew Bible, and it was the most significant revolutionary
idea to come out of the Protestant Reformation. Central to
sixteenth-century theology, covenant became the cornerstone of
the seventeenth-century English Commonweath, evidenced by
Parliament’s passage of the Protestation Oath in 1641 which was
the “first national covenant against popery and arbitrary
government,” followed by the Solemn League and Covenant in 1643.
Although there are plenty of books on Shakespeare and religion
and Shakespeare and the Bible, no recent critics have recognized
how Shakespeare’s plays popularized and spread the covenant idea,
making it available for the modern project. By seeding the
plays with allusions to biblical covenant stories, Shakespeare
not only lends ethical weight to secular lives but develops
covenant as the core idea in a civil religion or a founding myth
of the early-modern political community, writ small (family and
friendship) and large (business and state). Playhouse
relationships, especially those between actors and audiences,
were also understood through the covenant model, which lent
ethical shading to the convention of direct address.
Revealing covenant as the biblical beating heart of Shakespeare’s
drama, this book helps to explain how the plays provide a smooth
transition into secular society based on the idea of social
contract.
