Political Theologies

Political Theologies in Shakespeare’s England: The Sacred and the State in Measure for Measure by Debora Kuller Shuger (Palgrave) offers a defining reinterpretation of English political thought in the aftermath of the Reformation. Debora Kuller Shuger focuses not on the tension between Crown and Parliament but on the relation of the sacred to the state. The book examines Measure for Measure, for the issues at the heart of this play also shape the deep structure of English politics in the aftermath of the Reformation.
Author Introduction: The earliest recorded performance of Measure for Measure took place at Whitehall on 26 December, 1604, opening the first full‑scale Christmas revels of the new king's reign. The play must have been composed shortly before this performance, since it alludes to events that had occurred as recently as the beginning of December. Shakespeare may well have written Measure for Measure for this at once sacred and state occasion. The political theme dominates from the outset, its importance signalled by the opening line of the Duke's first speech: 'Of government the properties to unfold.'  Measure for Measure is the only Shakespeare play to begin with this sort of overt thematic statement; it is also the only one to have an (equally thematic) biblical titles ‑ a yoking of government and Gospel recalling the king's promise in the medieval English coronation oath to observe both 'justice and mercy ... that by his merciful dealing with others, the God of mercy may take commiseration upon him. Measure for Measure's unusual opening, with its braiding of rule and religion, sets up what follows, for the play, as I will show, is a sustained meditation on its own political moment ‑ the political moment of James's accession, but also, and more significantly, of the Reformation's aftermath.

Moreover, because the play is a meditation on its political moment, it offers itself as guide and witness to that moment. Since my argument presupposes this claim, it is worth dwelling on a little longer. The book does not present a reading of Measure for Measure in the ordinary sense; it says virtually nothing about imagery, irony, or characterization; some chapters, particularly the first, do not mention the play for considerable stretches. The book is not about Measure for Measure, but rather uses the play (together with its primary source, George Whetstone's Promos and Cassandra) as a basis for rethinking English politics and political thought circa 1600. 1 became interested in the play precisely because it raised various questions of a broadly political nature: Why does Shakespeare associate Puritanism with sexual regulation? Jonson's Puritans are obsessed with roast pig and encroaching popery but not with punishing (nor, for that matter, obtaining) illicit sex. Why would a play specifically about secular government focus on this? Or, granted that the Duke's friar robes are a plot device allowing him to prowl through Vienna undetected, why does he take on the role of confessor, spending a good deal of on‑stage time attempting to prepare his subjects for death? He does not perform any other sacerdotal office. He does not offer to marry Claudio and Juliet or celebrate Mass for the prisoners. Why is the state, figured by its ruler, associated with the sacrament of penance?

The play directed attention to these issues, and raised the possibility that they had political significance. Nor was it only these. The work said, as it were, 'I am about equity, justice, pardons, about sexual regulation, sacral kingship, the enforcement of good faith promises, about what to do with unrepentant felons and discarded whores, the inseparability of private morals from public justice, and, above all, about the relation of the sacred to the state. These are political issues. Forget Parliament. Forget classical republicanism. Only look for yourself, and you shall find that all is as I have spoken.' When I tried to follow this directive ‑ when I looked at sixteenth‑century English writings on the state, crown, courts, church, on religion, law, and polity ‑ I found what the play hinted I would find. What it said was politically significant, was. The Puritan demand for sexual regulation was linked to a specific political theory, the state's spiritual jurisdiction did have a penitential character, and so forth. This book emerged from my sense that every line of inquiry Measure for Measure suggested panned out. The lines of inquiry led in various directions ‑ from Plato's late dialogues to sixteenth‑century Chancery procedure ‑ but again and again the material that turned up was sufficiently complex and central to suggest that the play was not simply alluding to this or that recent event, but mapping the deep structure of English politics c. 1600: in particular, the binary structure of ideas and practices defining two opposed visions of Christian polity. The play is about the nature of Christian rule. As this implies, Measure for Measure construes the deep structure of Tudor‑Stuart politics in radically different terms from those found in more recent histories of the period, not only because the latter know about the constitutional struggles to come, but also because they define the political in a way that excludes the religious ideals that unfold at the dead center of early modern thinking on government and its properties.

Headline 3

insert content here

WT Main | About WT | Review Links | Contact | Review Sources | Search