The Quest for Shakespeare by Joseph Pearce

Goodreads: The Quest for Shakespeare: The Bard of Avon and the Church of Rome

Source: Library

Published: 2008

Summary: Pearce collects historical evidence to argue that Shakespeare was not only raised in a recusant Catholic household, but also remained a faithful Catholic throughout his life.

Review: Pearce joins a not insignificant list of authors and critics who have either felt or argued that William Shakespeare was a practicing Catholic.  Seemingly gleaning what proved most helpful from many of them, he lays out a case arguing that the playwright, now admitted by many to have at least been raised in a recusant household, continued to embrace the “old faith” throughout his life and died in it.  Pearce admits that the historical record will probably always remain too sparse for anyone to prove that Shakespeare was Catholic (though he even uses the historical silence in his defense—recusant Catholics would not have wanted to leave traces of their illegal activities), but maintains that all the signs we have point toward just this conclusion.

Pearce offers a lot of compelling evidence for his argument—evidence best summed up in a lengthy quotation by Shakespeare scholar Hugh Ross Willamson at the end of the book when he lists, almost in a bulletpoint manner, all the things we definitely know about Shakespeare’s associations with Catholicism and all the things we might know about Shakespeare’s associations.  Pearce’s arguments are strongest when he sticks to those things we know.  We know, for example, that Shakepeare’s parents were recusant Catholics, that his daughter Susanna was listed as a recusant Catholic, and so forth.  Again, none of this proves that Shakespeare himself embraced Catholicism, but it is provocative.

Pearce steps onto more uncertain ground when he begins to draw conclusions from some of the things we know.  For instance, he provides long lists of people who lived in Shakespeare’s town, who were Shakepeare’s relatives, or who were associated with Shakespeare in London and were Catholic, because, apparently, the more Catholics who live in your vicinity, the more likely you are to be Catholic, too.  He also sometimes waxes eloquently on what might have happened if Shakespeare had been present when Jesuit priest Edmund Campion arrived in England, if Shakespeare had met Jesuit priest Robert Southwell and been mentored by him, if Shakespeare had seen Southwell hanged, and so forth.  These assumptions typically rest on further assumptions—that Shakespeare was in the neighborhood when Campion arrived, that he really is that elusive William Shakeshafte who tutored in the countryside, etc.  Pearce repeatedly acknowledges that much of this is speculation, but that does not stop him from engaging in it.

The other notable weakness in the book is a marked antagonism toward many of the critics who promote philosophies with which Pearce disagrees.  Queer theorists, deconstructionists, postmodernists, and more are all at the receiving end of the author’s somewhat vitriolic wit.  Spirited debate is a staple of many academic works, but often the attacks seem to tend toward the personal.  Pearce repeatedly asserts that such critics misunderstand Shakespeare because they want to make him into their own image—an image he insinuates is warped and ugly.  While one understands that Pearce desperately wants critics to understand Shakespeare in the context of his own times and his own personality, it seems that the point could sometimes have been made more charitably.

Notwithstanding some of the speculations, The Quest for Shakespeare remains a compelling and provocative read.  Its greatest strength perhaps lies in its refutations of all the arguments against Shakespeare’s being Catholic—the main ones seemingly being that he must have been atheist/agnostic or that a Catholic writer would have never received royal favor.   Furthermore, in collecting so much historical evidence (it contains a lot more than people who studied Shakespeare in school were probably aware of existing), the book does a great service toward bringing the Bard to life.  Any interested in Shakepeare’s links to Catholicism should give it a try.