Talk:Religious views of William Shakespeare

message: Someone familiar with the subject should submit this as a Did you know article. I think it would easily make the main page. Wrad 18:38, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  DYK? 

message: Shouldn't it be "affected"?
Given the context, I'm pretty sure it's right, though I don't have the source.  It is from a Catholic work, and the wording surrounding it seems to support "infected" over "affected". Wrad 03:10, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's available online : "infected" it is! In this case, however, it's a secondary source: they are presenting it as the view of Richard Simpson, a shakespearean scholar of the nineteenth century. The encyclopaedia's own view is that WS thought "sympathetically and even tenderly of the creed in which his father and mother had been brought up". --Old Moonraker 05:50, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Given the circumstances of Christopher Marlowe's death, in the midst of a high-level investigation into atheism in which he was a major suspect, it's difficult to agree that "In that age being atheist isn't dangerous"... --Paularblaster (talk) 18:54, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

text: So one might take it from Shakespeare's reticence about religion that his personal beliefs would offend those in power; but to go from that to a statistical argument that Shakespeare is likely to have been Catholic because most of those in England whose beliefs were offensive to those in power were Catholics, simply isn't enough. --Paularblaster (talk) 07:22, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Infected" with the Atheism? 

message: I've added some detail to the notes, with links on the C. Asquith footnote to the Google sample chapters of her book, and with a wiki link to her Wiki site.--Ajschorschiii 05:52, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Fixing note links

message: I've added some more specifics from Ackroyd on the close association of S's teachers and a fellow pupil with Catholicism. --Ajschorschiii 06:24, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: S's Schooling

message: I've made a change to the sentence on the testament found in home of WS's father, to reflect the 20th century evidence definitively linking the testament's reported wording to a document composed by Charles Borromeo.  The sentence I replaced did not reflect the findings of 20th century scholarship. --Ajschorschiii 03:02, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: S's family

message: One of the reasons presented to doubt Shakespeare's Catholicism is that he called a man convicted in the Gunpowder Plots an "equivocator."  This sounds like a strange use of the word.  Isn't it strange, if Shakespeare wrote this out of opposition to Catholicism to charge the man with equivocating of all things, if we take his meaning properly?  Fr. Garnett attempted to blow up the British Parlaiment, but he's in hell for being purposefully ambiguous?  Could he instead mean to condemn Fr. Garnett for replying to violence with violence?  65.126.19.22 (talk) 20:31, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right that equivocation is purposeful ambiguity, but the Gunpowder Plot equivocation being referred to is not just any old ambiguity - it's about giving deliberately deceptive testimony in a treason trial. TooManyFingers (talk) 08:18, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Equivocator

message: In the reference it is Milward, not Wood, who claims that  in rewriting  King Leir Shakespeare expurgated the "clearly Protestant, ant-papist bias". Wood merely states that Shakespeare had a "fascination" for the work. As "Wood" is not supported by the reference I propose removing him. --Old Moonraker (talk) 07:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: After looking at the source again, I see you are correct. Sorry about that - carless reading on my part. I removed Wood from that sentence.Mamalujo (talk) 18:05, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for that. Wood covers the issue extensively in In Search of Shakespeare and he is generally accepting of the view that WS may have held Catholic sympathies. Just one example, from many: he draws broadly the same conclusion as Pearce regarding the Blackfriars gatehouse. Possible scope for expansion, if anyone felt so inclined. --Old Moonraker (talk) 20:10, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Failed verification tag re [[Michael Wood (historian)]] in "Catholic sympathies" 

message: This was deleted as "POV intro" but reinstated. This from  WP:LEDE: "The lead serves both as an introduction to the article, and as a summary of the important aspects of the subject of the article." AFAICS the new version satisfies the "summary" part of the WP requirement but not, as yet, the "introduction"; perhaps there should be an opening sentence putting the piece into context. There is certainly no case for deleting it completely. --Old Moonraker (talk) 10:04, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: What do you suggest for an opening sentence? Xxanthippe (talk) 12:00, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, no dissenting voices: inserting. --Old Moonraker (talk) 06:05, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

text: To take up one point from User:Mamalujo: The lede actually says the opposite, because he/she has just reinserted this: "evidence suggests that ... that he himself was Catholic". This isn't in the article either: we can't have a rule applied only to one side of the argument.  As I don't find evidence for that statement, only inference and speculation, in what follows I have tagged it for a source. On one point we can agree: the lede isn't satisfactory at present. It has to introduce the piece and summarise what follows. It succeeds at neither. --Old Moonraker (talk) 21:04, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Cross post: now reads "some evidence", an improvement. Still like to have it referenced, please. Please also remember that removing  tags when a citation is still required  (as you have done in the past, here for example) is bad practice. --Old Moonraker (talk) 21:06, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I apologize for the removal of the tags.  However, the assertion is actually abundantly sourced in the body of the article, which the intro summarizes.  It just seemed a little excessive to request a cite for the assertion that there is evidence of WS's family's and his own Catholicism when the article is replete with such cites.  Still, I understand I should have addressed my thoughts here or provided cites rather than removing the tag. Mamalujo (talk) 22:07, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

text: Support this version from User:Xxanthippe: Seems to satisfy the requirements of WP:LEDE and most of the concerns expressed above. I wouldn't want to cram this section out with more references, but for example supporting quotes for "conforming member of the Anglican Church"  are available: the noted Elizabethan scholar A. L. Rowse in his WS biography has "He was an orthodox, confirming member of the Church into which he had been baptised, was brought up and married, in which his children were reared and in whose arms he at length was buried". There are many others to support all the contentions here. --Old Moonraker (talk) 08:09, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. I agree that the lede (as it is called!) should not be overburdened with references. However, the one you quote could well find a place in the bulk of the article. Xxanthippe (talk) 08:29, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, added lower down. --Old Moonraker (talk) 09:13, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  New lede section 

message: A recent edit removed some Google books links from the cites.  Is there some sort of policy or convention in Wikipedia about such links in the cites?  I actually think the links are quite useful for verification and further research. Mamalujo (talk) 15:25, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It's usual to delegate that task to Special:Booksources by way of the ISBN or similar identifier; for several reasons (one of which is that this method allows the user to choose which databases to view the book on, including Google Books), the primary one being that Wikipedia should not "advertise" for one specific database (in this case Google) or vendor. I'm not aware that this has force of policy, but it is the usual practice. --Xover (talk) 15:59, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Google books links 

message: A recent edit in complete good faith has inserted, at first sight counter-intuitively, that the Church Of England was Catholic. This is certainly arguable, but the argument is outside the scope of this article and I have re-instated the conventional "Protestant" distinction as more appropriate here. Many references exist to justify this and can be added  if thought necessary. 
Minor point from hyphen: "Hyphens should normally not be used in adverb–adjective modifiers"
--Old Moonraker (talk) 14:08, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Church of England as "Catholic" 

message: Most authors doing business in the  Shakespeare biography industry make reference to the question of religion, but Pearce, associate professor at Ave Maria University and, as his publisher notes, "dedicated to reclaiming Catholic culture", has devoted two works entirely to this topic: Through Shakespeare's Eyes: Seeing the Catholic Presence in the Plays and The Quest for Shakespeare: The Bard of Avon and the Church of Rome. Presumably it's for reasons of lavish availability that Pearce's output seems to dominate the references in the article and, as a result, Wikipedia:Reliable sources and undue weight may be compromised. Anyone have suggestions for other, reliable sources to include, for balance? --Old Moonraker (talk) 15:23, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not a fan of Pearce. When I checked one detail I found he was outrageously distorting the evidence. We certainly need less tendentious material. Paul B (talk) 13:49, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with the above. This article has been plagued by sectarian POV. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:30, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: One short section attributed to Pearce removed; plenty left for his fans. --Old Moonraker (talk) 00:16, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

text: If Pearce were a WP contributor, instead of an author extravagantly quoted by certain contributors, his posts would be barred as failing the WP:NEUTRAL tests, dedicated as he is to "reclaiming Catholic culture" (see above). No more tinkering with content sourced to his books: suggest that you follow your guidelines and "exclude the material altogether".--217.155.32.221 (talk) 12:26, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Joseph Pearce]] 

message: Explanation for xXanthippe:  it's misleading to say that the Church of England was severed from the Papacy, because it gives the false impression, to my mind at least, that the "Papacy in Rome" is somehow separable from the Roman Catholic Church when in fact the papacy is integral to it.  In the next sentence, I've replaced "reforms" with "practices" because "reforms" has a positive connotation, but no English Catholic at the time would have thought the changes were for the better.  In the following sentence I left "reforms" alone because it is somewhat neutralized by "imposed".  --Kenatipo  speak! 01:29, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  C of E severed from what? 

message: Regarding footnote 47:  Can someone post the complete quote?  Two questions: 1)  why is Peter Milward being singled out here?  it looks like Milward was not the only Shakespeare scholar named in that quotation; let's see all the names, then decide how to proceed.  2) who is Jeffrey Knapp to be pontificating on the value of another scholar's contribution?  --Kenatipo  speak! 20:18, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Whether other schoalrs are also mentioned is surely irrelevant, since this is in response to a point specifically about Milward. As for your second question, it's not for us to judge whether Knapp is "allowed" to have an opinion, is it? We report on scholars' views. He is a scholar in the relevant field. Paul B (talk) 20:21, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Kenatipo. I don't think this is a widely held opinion. My impression is that the contrary is true. He, for exapmle, was the first to suggest the Shakeshafte connection to fill in the lost years. That was an idea, among others, that certainly got traction. Asquith is a dilettante to Shakespearean studies and a nonacademic. Milward however, as his article says, is "a leading figure in scholarship on English Renaissance literature", and almost all of his work in this area has been on Shakespeare. Mamalujo (talk) 00:08, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Can someone please post the entire quote here, so we can all read it and make some decisions?  On the face of it, it appears that Peter Milward is being sandbagged.  I'm not denying Knapp his right to an opinion, so long as it's ascribed explicitly to him and not made to appear like the judgment of the entire scholarly community.  --Kenatipo  speak! 01:27, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

text: "Who is Jeffrey Knapp?": Chancellor's Professor of English, Berkeley . --Old Moonraker (talk) 09:09, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for posting this, Old Moonraker.  (You beat me to it -- I was able to torture it out of the snippet view, finally).  As it turns out, it's not really Knapp speaking, is it?  It's really Debora Shuger's opinion, around 2001, and, I don't think our summary of the quote in our article is an adequate summary.  For one thing, was Shuger dismissing all of Milward's scholarship?  I doubt it.  I think we need to look at this.  --Kenatipo  speak! 15:22, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The section needed the extended quotation you added. --Old Moonraker (talk) 16:23, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  47. Knapp, Jeffrey (2001). "The religion of players", Shakespeare Survey 54, p.61 

message: A few days ago I changed the language because it sounded like Dibdale became a Jesuit (Old Moonraker changed it back).  I believe Ackroyd is incorrect on pp.63-64 p.61 (corrected, per OM).  Dibdale was not a Jesuit;  he was what is called a "seminary priest" or "secular clergy", meaning he didn't belong to an order like the Jesuits or Franciscans.  The Wiki article Robert Dibdale makes no mention of the Society of Jesus, based on Anstruther's book Seminary Priests and Brownlow's book.  Peter Milward, a Jesuit, makes no mention of Dibdale being a Jesuit in Shakespeare's Religious Background (Loyola UP, Chicago, 1985, pp.39, 52–54, 68).  The Catholic Encyclopedia article about English martyrs  designates the Jesuits with an S.J. after their names, e.g. Thomas Cottom, but not after R. Dibdale.  --Kenatipo  speak! 03:06, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: My change was for stylistic reasons, rather than factual—the possibly over-nice grammatical point was in the edit summary—but you have prompted me to look at Ackroyd.  Firstly, the page number should be 61 (at least, in my edition). There, Ackroyd's wording is completely in accord with your reading—"there they were joined by ... Robert Debdale"; my grammatical tweak obscured this. I'm going to fix this with "travelled to", which would make the point very clear. Thanks for patiently pointing this out for me. --Old Moonraker (talk) 06:45, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you, Old Moonraker.  You are a gentleman and a scholar!  And, your edit solves the problem.  You are correct about the page number -- I was reading footnote 16 instead of 18.  (I intend to go back and learn from your grammar lesson when I have a minute - I am interested in understanding what you were trying to teach).  It would be nice to be able to afford to buy all these source books and journal articles and read them instantly on line, but I can't.  I spend a silly amount of time trying to torture the Googlebooks snippet view into showing me what I'm searching for!  On page 446, Ackroyd says this, which also mislead me: Among the Jesuit priests, who were accused of feigning ceremonies of exorcism on some impressionable chambermaids, were Thomas Cottam and Robert Debdale.  Cottam was the (from the Googlebooks snippet view).  --Kenatipo  speak! 13:58, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dibdale "joins the Jesuits" in section "Shakespeare's schooling" 

message: There's an article in yesterday's Guardian in which John Banville writes about Harold Bloom.  Apparently, Bloom, in his Anatomy of Influence, says "I do not know whether Shakespeare the man was Protestant or Catholic, skeptic or occultist, Hermetist or nihilist (though I suspect that last possibility), but the dramatist regularly drew upon the arch-Protestant Geneva Bible throughout the last 17 years of his productivity."
The WP article on Bloom has a section on his interest in Shakespeare, but I can't find any reference to the Geneva Bible there, or in this article about his religion, nor in William Shakespeare, and there's only one mention of him in the Geneva Bible article.  I'm no expert on these matters, but if Bloom is correct there ought to be something about it at least in the Protestant section of this article (and perhaps as well, if we're looking at "his last 17 years of productivity", in the Shakespeare authorship question article too). --GuillaumeTell 22:18, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It's previewed on Google Books (p. 62 et sec). Bloom specifically tells us that he is talking only about vocabulary, and not religion: "I am referring not to faith or spirituality but to the arts of language". We're probably ok leaving it out. --Old Moonraker (talk) 22:27, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shakespeare and the Geneva Bible 

message: This entire debate is problematic because it is entirely possible that, like many of his countrymen, Shakespeare's religious views changed over time.  The Elizabethan Settlement was a very gradual process, especially outside London.  Elizabeth didn't just snap her fingers and make every church Anglican.  Parliament didn't even adopt the Thirty-Nine Articles until 1571, and there was a severe shortage of qualified clergy in the early part of her reign.  Documents from the time period have indicated that in the 1560s, there were parish priests who did not even know how to recite the Lord's Prayer, for instance.  If you were to grow up in a cultural milieu in which your family's local Catholic priest (who was preaching the state religion from 1553-58) was replaced by an "Anglican" who did not seem to understand the religion he was supposed to belong to, you might find yourself longing for the old days - or simply skeptical.  It's believed that much of England did not accept Anglicanism during the first half of Elizabeth's reign.  But as time passed and the Church of England's beliefs became more established (and competent parish clergy replaced the first batch), many people become reconciled to the church.  This could have happened to Shakespeare as well. Funnyhat (talk) 17:10, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Very plausible. You ought to write an essay about it but at the moment it's OR. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:00, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problematic 

message: The section discusses only Atheism. Possible lack of religious affiliation would be a very valid topic for a new section, but this isn't it. I suggest a revert and even, later on, a new section to cover this: it looks like a plausible and interesting  topic! --Old Moonraker (talk) 08:27, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, User:Xxanthippe, for the fix. Now, anybody up for a new paragraph on this? --Old Moonraker (talk) 09:56, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Atheism" section header change 

message: The present structure of the article, with separate sections for the various theories, is  very logical but it doesn't lend itself to getting across any overall sense of balance on the topic. To get away from this adversarial, corner-fighting style of presentation I'm thinking of reshuffling it by source or category of material. Thus we would have sections for the family circumstances (e.g., the Ardens, the unsound priest at Temple Grafton), incidents from the life (his schoolmasters, the Hoghtons,  the gatehouse at Blackfriars), textual evidence from the plays and sonnets, documentary evidence (Collier's grubbing through the parish records at St Saviour's, the workmen's discovery of the Borromeo tract) and later commentary.
By removing the divisions as they stand at present the article will present a more neutral point of view; at present the tug-of-war way in which it has developed is all too evident. The re-shuffle should disguise this, and improve the article accordingly. However, I don't want to start this if it's not going to be accepted; if contributors prefer the current battleground, please speak up now.
--Old Moonraker (talk) 10:08, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think the article is in such poor shape as it is, but it could use improvement. For the most part, I don't object to making the changes as you outline them. Still, I can't say in advance that I won't take exception. I will say organizing by sources doesn't seem to be the best idea. Give it a go, if you think it will improve the article. Mamalujo (talk) 19:30, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion for re-arranging the material 

message: There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:William Shakespeare's influence which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RMCD bot 17:29, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Move discussion in progress

message: As I was checking the article, I noticed several problems in the logic of the writing. On the one hand, the word "evidence" is used tendentiously; and at times it makes the article sound contradictory:
and then
also:
and then:
The word "evidence" (and 'discovery' as well) implies a resolved judgment about the matter, as if it were "a fact." Some scholars consider "evidence" what for some other scholars is by no means such thing.
e.g. 
* For Jesuit Father Peter Milward and Clare Asquith, there is evidence that Shakespeare was a Catholic.
* For Sir Frederick Bilby Watson and A. L. Rowse, there is evidence that Shakespeare was a Protestant.
* For William Birch and the writer Vadim Nikolayev, there is evidence that Shakespeare was an atheist.
In this Wikipedia article, where a Neutral point of view is needed, and a clear writing style is needed, we cannot use the word "evidence" in such different ways to refer to the same thing, unless we want the article to be contradictory.
Notice also that the word "speculation" is used with bias, as you can notice in the following sentence:
This statement suggests that authors are only speculating when they are searching for signs of Shakespeare's religious beliefs, while in fact, authors are also speculating when they are searching for signs of atheism in his writings.
The truth is that if there is a "paucity of direct evidence" about Shakespeare's Christianity, there is much less about atheism in his personal writings. 
I propose a whole revision of the article taking into account the need of a neutral point of view, and 
I suggest that the use of the word "interpretation" be used more. After all, it is the interpretation of scholars and historians about Shakespeare's religious view what this article most talks about.--Goose friend (talk) 01:08, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The word "evidence" does not mean "proof". Scientists and historians talk about X being evidence for Y, even when the evidence is only very slim and Y is probably not correct. They do that to be neutral when assessing a situation—collect all the evidence for various possibly different conclusions, then judge which is the most convincing. I do not see any tendentious words or lack of neutrality—"if any" is standard boilerplate. Johnuniq (talk) 01:36, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tendentious words 'Speculation', 'evidence' and lack of neutrality 

message: To answer the question that was asked of me, Mr. Aykroyd's work is being cited, but shouldn't his conclusions be verified by some experts in the field? I'm not sure about here on Wikipedia, but journalistic standards normally require verification and substantiation of spectacular claims, especially within academia, where opinions run quite passionate. I've not heard of any writings in Shakespeare's hand that anyone could agree on. Excepting his signatures, naturally.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by FatGuySeven (talk • contribs) 20:52, 23 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Substantiating claims on the Aykroyd study 

message: His will makes it pretty clear as to his religion-christianity, this should be at the top of the page. Why is it not?Sellingstuff (talk) 01:44, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: See much debate about this matter on the talk page above. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:51, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

text: Jacobean England was not like modern Europe or America. They didn't have humanist funerals. Wills were written to formula on the assumption that you belonged to the state religion unless you insisted on some alternative form of words. Paul B (talk) 14:09, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: All these matters have been dealt with above. There is no need to repeat them. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:44, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  How is there any debate? 

message: What about Judaism? --Error (talk) 19:50, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Judaism