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Christian Humanism in Shakespeare
A Study in Religion and Literature
by Lee Oser
Imprint: Catholic University of America Press
Shakespeare, Lee Oser argues, is a Christian literary artist who criticizes and challenges Christians, but who does so on Christian grounds. Stressing Shakespeare’s theological sensitivity, Oser places Shakespeare’s work in the "radical middle," the dialectical opening between the sacred and the secular where great writing can flourish. According to Oser, the radical middle was and remains a site of cultural originality, as expressed through mimetic works of art intended for a catholic (small "c") audience. It describes the conceptual space where Shakespeare was free to engage theological questions, and where his Christian skepticism could serve his literary purposes. Oser reviews the rival cases for a Protestant Shakespeare and for a Catholic Shakespeare, but leaves the issue open, focusing, instead, on how Shakespeare exploits artistic resources that are specific to Christianity, including the classical-Christian rhetorical tradition. The scope of the book ranges from an introductory survey of the critical field as it now stands, to individual chapters on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, the Henriad, Hamlet, and King Lear. Writing with a deep sense of literary history, Oser holds that mainstream literary criticism has created a false picture of Shakespeare by secularizing him and misconstruing the nature of his art. Through careful study of the plays, Oser recovers a Shakespeare who is less vulnerable to the winds of academic and political fashion, and who is a friend to the enduring project of humanistic education. Christian Humanism in Shakespeare: A Study in Religion and Literature is both eminently readable and a work of consequence.
Lee Oser is professor of English and Catholic Studies at the College of the Holy Cross.
"Lee Oser is making what is now a novel argument – how the pendulum swings – that Shakespeare’s plays should be read through the lens of Christian humanism...I don’t think I’ve read anything on Shakespeare in years that’s drawn my attention to the importance of so many moments and aspects of the plays that I had simply paid no attention to before."
~William Flesch, Brandeis University
"Lee Oser's reading of Shakespeare as an Erasmian humanist is a work of scholarly conscience and commitment. Oser shows real delicacy in his treatment of the plays, and a generous wit in his dealings with the vast secondary literature. Shakespeare emerges here not as a champion of orthodoxy but rather an exuberant skeptic who saw that questioning must have an end."
~David Bromwich, Yale University
"Lee Oser offers insight after insight concerning Shakespeare’s art and language, the values contested in his dramas, and the degree to which religion plays a pivotal role on the Globe’s stage. If one remains skeptical about the argument that Shakespeare’s Christianity is, as Oser claims, ‘entirely relevant’ to his achievement, then, as Coleridge offered about Christianity itself, ‘TRY IT’: in short, read this provocative, controversial, and scrupulously written book."
~James Engell, Harvard University
"Anyone who has any love for Shakespeare and desire to gain deeper insights into Shakespeare—his context, time, and the dramas of stage and life—will find an exceptional work in Christian Humanism in Shakespeare. For those of us who are involved in the curating and cultivating of the heart and the mind in relation to God and the arts, this is an indispensable read."
~VoegelinView
"It is a learned book which demonstrates Oser’s vast acquaintance with Shakespearean criticism of differing persuasions and his understanding of biblical texts and Christian theological arguments—whether Augustinian, Thomist, Calvinist, or Lutheran. In all of this, it is a book which bravely insists on the integrity of a form of Shakespearean criticism which the cultural materialists and the new historicists of the latter years of the twentieth century and the early years of the 21st century scorned and derided."
~Heythrop Journal
"Oser give[s] highly informed, close readings of several of the major plays, including The Merchant of Venice, the Henriad history plays ( Richard II; Henry IV, Parts I and II; and Henry V), Hamlet, and King Lear. [He] show[s] a command of much of the vast secondary literature, from Samuel Johnson and Coleridge to Enid Welsford and E. K. Chambers to our contemporaries. [He] also show[s] an impressive command of the Latin-language, civilized culture in which Shakespeare was educated in school at Stratford and in life in London."
~National Review Online
"Lee Oser’s Christian Humanism in Shakespeare is a dense, learned work of literary history and interpretation…It immerses readers in a Shakespearean milieu that is God intoxicated, reminding them that to read Shakespeare is necessarily to read the religious debates of the day and to respond with the appropriate religious feeling. It reminds us that, no matter what Shakespeare’s beliefs were, he took seriously in his work the offerings of grace, the possibility of salvation, the threat of damnation, and the responsibility of the individual conscience."
~Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching
"Oser earns his own pedagogical and moral authority by attending closely to the plays as entertainments.... Oser’s entry to his subject, accordingly, hinges on a sensitive reading of eight plays, and on assessing, in each instance, the relative weight of knowledge traditions as various as Catholicism, Protestantism, the Old Testament, Graeco-Roman myths, and classical rhetoric, in composing a belief system from which Shakespeare would venture to examine faith, judgement, and free will in a kingdom that called itself Christian."
~Essays in Criticism