Venite Prandete

THE CATHOLIC REFERENCES AND CONTEXT OF SHAKESPEARE’S WORKS Shakespeare died 23 April 1616           Anonymous artist 1840, "A Procession of Shakespeare's Characters".(1) Claire Asquith, in her study of Shakespeare’s works, (1) was alerted to the subtext of his plays when she was in communist Russia as the wife of the British Ambassador during the Cold War. On attending the performance of a play by Chekov, at a time when she had been reading about the history of the Reformation in England, she witnessed the subtleties of the coded language used by the Russian actors in a manner that conveyed one message to the audience, while concealing it under the guise of normality to the watching KGB. Her book provides an interesting analysis of a rather complicated double language that she imputes to Shakespeare in his plays. The reformation, as recognised by Asquith, was a time of persecution for all Catholics in England under a totalitarian regime which, of necessity,...

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 23rd APRIL 1616 “HE DIED A PAPIST” William Shakespeare died on 23rd April 1616, his death recorded by the Protestant rector of Sapperton, Gloucestershire and later Archdeacon of Coventry, the Reverend Richard Davies, in the following terms: “He died April 23, 1616, AEtat. 53, probably at Stratford, for there he is buried and hath a monument on which lays a heavy curse upon anyone who shall remove his bones. He died a papist.” The entry in the burial register of the Stratford parish church of the Holy Trinity provides his interment as; “1616, Apr 25 Will Shakespeare, gent.” To any Catholic reading Shakespeare’s plays, particularly in the context of the political environment of his time, the Catholic allusions are glaringly apparent. The beauty is that, upon detailed study, a recognition of his Catholicism, in conjunction with historical comparisons, brings out his extraordinary wit and his subtle contemporaneous references to the political upheavals of the tim...