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/lit/ - Literature

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12545523 No.12545523 [Reply] [Original]

Why can't people accept that Shakespeare was Christian?

>> No.12545736

>>12545523
his religious views were in no way relevant to his work

>> No.12545774

>>12545523
Because he is considered the greatest writer, modern day atheist liberals can't accept anyone that has been great in their field to be religious.

>> No.12545788

The secret of Shakespeare's tragedies is the angst of a Catholic writer witnessing his country slip into a Protestant abyss.

>> No.12545795

>>12545736
The fact that England's two greatest authors, Shakespeare and Pope, were Catholic is important.

>> No.12545803

>>12545795
All it shows is that God explicitly favors catholics, a fact that was already widely known.

>> No.12545824

>>12545523
he couldn´t care less about religion, and christians are mad because they want to associate him with one of them

>> No.12545825

He included fairies and magic in his plays. Immoral.

>> No.12545827

>>12545795
>Pope
He wasn't

>> No.12545868
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12545868

>>12545827
>The Pope isn't Catholic

>> No.12545885

>>12545523
>Why can't people accept that Shakespeare was black?

>> No.12545907

>>12545885
based and redpilled

>> No.12545912

>>12545774
True. Atheists are pathetic

>> No.12545916

>>12545868
Or one of England's greatest authors

>> No.12545921

>>12545774
>>12545912
Ridiculous strawman

>> No.12545943

>>12545523
Can they not, though? In my experience, any analysis of Shakespeare discusses his Christianity and its impact on his writing, and I have literally never seen someone claim that he is an atheist.
Are you just making things up to be angry at again, anon?

>> No.12545955

>>12545916
>Alexander Pope is the second-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations after Shakespeare.

>>12545827
Dumber than the dyke.

>> No.12546017

>>12545868
kek

>> No.12546024

There's no evidence to suggest anything about his religion so the safest assumption is he was at least outwardly Christian. His father supposedly wrote a note professing his adherence to Catholicism on his deathbed but it has been lost and may have been a forgery.

Back then you had to pay a fine if you didn't attend church and from what we can tell Shakespeare didn't like to waste money (he was a tax evader) so he probably attended at the least to avoid the fine.

>> No.12546114

>>12546024
>he was a tax evader
Based

>> No.12546131

>>12546114
Shakespeare was indeed very based.

>> No.12546199

>>12546131
and Christian

>> No.12546227

He was into guys, but so was King James himself I guess

>> No.12546245

>>12545795
England has a better chance of turning moslem than it does of returning to catholicism, it's over, give up.

>> No.12546256

>>12545955
The coxcomb bird, so talkative and grave,

That from his cage cries Cuckold, Whore, and Knave,

Though many a passenger he rightly call,

You hold him no Philosopher at all

>> No.12546270

>>12546256
Based Pope calling out cucks and thots.

>> No.12546376
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12546376

Christians sadly continue to selectively align themselves with whatever and whoever will bolster their own image, regardless of the massive hypocrisies they embody.

Pagans? Degenerates, and filth. But not Plato or Aristotle, whose conceptions we "borrowed" much of for our theologies. In fact, here's a passage I cherrypicked which proves that Plato was actually more-or-less a proto-Christian, and his God roughly the same as our own. Also polytheism a shit, but aren't these Baroque paintings simply gorgeous? The Sistine Chapel is an achievement every Christian should feel proud of.

Homosexuality? Burn, faggots. Degenerates like you will most certainly not be allowed to roam freely in an ideal, Christian society. Shakespeare, though? Absolutely a Catholic. He's a Catholic. Those references to men, throughout his sonnets, which editors have since changed to gender-neutral pronouns? That's just a slip of the pen, our Shakespeare ain't no faggot. He was a Catholic, his work is a statement on Catholicism, and his greatness from the fact he was a Catholic.

Science? I don't agree with many of its models, no. The Big Bang? Absolutely true, proving that the Universe is not eternal and uncreated but had to have an exact beginning, thereby matching the conceptions of Genesis! God kickstarted the Big Bang, though I don't believe any of the other details surrounding this hypothetical model. Only what works with Scripture. Checkmate, athiests!

Sarcasm aside, it's quite sad to see a group outwardly dedicated to the virtues of love and tolerance and forgiveness and unity and all these other great, humanistic values, while in-practice showing themselves to be some of the most judgemental, divisive, argumentative, hypocritical citizens around. The way Catholics and Protestants speak of eachother is just a simple example I could point to. I wonder whether people would be more Christlike, closer to embodying his tenets, if they abandoned these outward clubs of religion and simply followed the teachings alone.

Not hating on Christians here, these are just my honest observations. To return to the thread topic, if you're going to claim Shakespeare as a Catholic from what evidence you feel there is for it, make sure you claim him in all his affairs, including his similarly plausible romantic ones with an adult man. To do less is blatant hypocrisy, and Christian scriptures heavily reprimand such a mode of operation.

>> No.12546390

>>12545523
Why can't Christians accept that Shakespeare was bisexual?

>> No.12546409

>>12546376
If you care to read the NT, you'll see religious opponents are spoken very ill of by Christ, Paul, Peter, and everyone really.

Charlamagne was promiscuous as hell but is beatified by the RCC. I don't think Shakespeare was very religious but you get my point

>> No.12546430
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12546430

>>12546390

>> No.12546494

Shakespeare was asexual.

>> No.12546502

>>12546390
leftist propaganda. Kys

>> No.12546516

>>12546376
>I wonder whether people would be more Christlike, closer to embodying his tenets, if they abandoned these outward clubs of religion and simply followed the teachings alone.
They wouldn’t do very well given that the outward religious forms are in fact part of the teachings.

>> No.12546527

>>12546502
Read his sonnets

>> No.12546599

>>12546516
Then they should weigh the importance of the precepts versus the practises, and ask which are more important. Is it worth it to be a practising Catholic, but be full of hatred towards Protestants and other sects because of it? Of would it be better, in the eyes of Jesus/the Lord/etc to deaffiliate with these outward groups and focus merely on precepts themselves. This assumes of course that a person couldn't manage both, which while possible for some clearly isn't so for all, many people getting lost in tribalism and other modes of unvirtue as a result of following a formal, outward group. If you could manage both, good, but many clearly can't.

>> No.12546629

>>12546599
>would it be better, in the eyes of Jesus/the Lord/etc to deaffiliate with these outward groups and focus merely on precepts themselves.
Deaffiliate with the flock what.

The precepts include dogma

>> No.12546634

>>12545523
Because he was actually a gay tranny, weren't you aware? That's not exactly compatible with the church

>> No.12546651

>>12545788

What evidence is there that he was catholic? His mother’s family were Catholics, but you probably know how matriarchal England was at the time that he would be coerced into becoming Catholic against his father’s wishes and English law of the time.

John Donne also came from a catholic background, but he converted.

>> No.12546988

>>12545523
Shakespeare strikes me as something of a pagan.

>>12546502
A good deal of his sonnets are literally — not figuratively, not metaphorically, not ambiguously — about him calling a boy sexy.

>> No.12547035

>>12545736
But he hated Jews,

>> No.12547051
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12547051

>>12546376
>if you don't accept that every non Christian is a subhuman incapable of thought then you aren't a Christian

>> No.12547067

>>12546988
Agreed about his paganism. Clearly he loved Greek culture and their mythology, referencing it constantly throughout his canon. And works like Midsummer Night's Dream, seems very much inspired by the elements of pagan tales. Then again, I have no clue what his true, metaphysical views were, and somewhat lean to him being an athiest of some kind, but clearly he was enthused by paganism as an artistic mythos.

>> No.12547089

>>12545523
modernity cames with secularization of everything.

>>12545774
just like Newton.

>> No.12547097

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_William_Shakespeare

Atheists and LARPagans BTFO

>> No.12547098

>>12545803
True, the greatest writers were either Catholics or Orthodox.

>> No.12547103

>>12546199
yes probably, as I said, but really there isn't enough biographical evidence to draw any solid conclusions.

>> No.12547118

>>12547067
So were Dante and Milton....

>> No.12547143
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12547143

>>12545523
>Why can't people accept that Shakespeare was a Charlatan

ftfy

>> No.12547144

>>12547067
>>12546988
>Tolkien was a pagan

please stop shitposting

>> No.12547150

>>12545885
Honestly, now that I think about it, this is fucking based

>> No.12547206

You can't really say anything about Shakespeare's personal views. Pretty much all you can safely say about his opinions is that at some point in his life he had a passion for theatre (which, incidentally, puts him at odds with religious authorities of his day).

>> No.12547220

>>12545916
hey, couldnt help but noticing you accidentally left your tripfaggotry on. thanks.

>> No.12547225

>>12546376
Stupid atheist...

>> No.12547227

>>12547220
I have to agree with "her" on this one, Pope is overrated

>> No.12547289

It gets them really riled up. Same with Michelangelo. Shakespeare’s books are filled with quotes and references to an obscure ultraprotestant work.

>> No.12547297

>>12545788
>>12545795
Mere nonsense.

>> No.12547298

>>12547289
>Shakespeare’s books are filled with quotes and references to an obscure ultraprotestant work.
Care to share the name of the work?

>> No.12547323

>>12547298
A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures

>> No.12547377

>>12546376
>Christians would be better Christian following my views than those of the apostles
What even goes through your mind typing this?
You could say Christianity is awful, but this whole 'I know Christianity better than the apostles and apostolic succession' is downright retarded. The apostles certainly didn't care about these 'great, humanistic values'.
One dogma is often laid in the form of 'hate the sin, not the sinner' which immediately answers your bizarre non-argument, like Shakespeare being a fag not meaning you can't praise his works. There's little evidence of his faggotry BTW, you really have to want to see it to be convinced. You could have picked a sure example like Proust.

>> No.12547392

>>12547323
Interesting but from what I can tell it wasn't obscure when Shakespeare lived.

>> No.12547452

>>12547377
My point was that if you're supposed to "love your neighbour as yourself", then I don't think that's exactly being served when you see Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox followers endlessly flinging shit at eachother for a bulk of their lives, all under the name of "Christ". I was asking whether the formalism of following these creeds may betray the teachings themselves, and whether a person might be more Christian, i.e embodying the spirit of Christ, if they simply followed those precepts and not these outward sects. Is a person Christian based on their outward allegiances, or their inward virtues? Which weighs more?

And I could say there's just as "little evidence" for him being any kind of believing Christian, if you want to go there. Yet look at the certainty of the Christians in this thread, all clamoring to claim Shakes as their own, not even once mentioning the other "details" attached to him.

>> No.12547565

basically a pagan with a crypto-catholic upbringing
not a very interesting question on its own

>> No.12547709

>>12547565
Retard

>> No.12547716

>>12547565
Based

>> No.12547725

>>12547565
an agnostic with catholic upbringing

>> No.12547745

>>12547725
sure, you could put it that way, too
he wasn't a cultist or anything like that
but nature, in all its permutations, which includes humans and their societies, seemed to fire his imagination moreso than dogma

>> No.12547751

>>12547725
this, agnostic but with a penchant for pagan artistic mythos

>> No.12547771
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12547771

>>12545795
>The fact that England's two greatest authors, Shakespeare and Pope, were Catholic
nice try, papist putz

>> No.12547942

>>12545523
depends on your reading of Measure for Measure.

>> No.12548385

>>12547377
are you illiterate? he literally said christians would be better christians if they followed christ. Also shakespeare definitely was a raging fag, have you read any of his sonnets or are you just spewing out bullshit you know nothing about?

>> No.12548408

>>12547745
>>12547751
you realize he's not his characters right, this isn't YA lit

>> No.12548414

>>12545788
There is truth to this. Look at Malvolio in Twelfth Night.

>> No.12548422

>>12548408
by that logic not a single point about Shakespeare himself could be discussed, only the works themselves, as if they existed in a vacuum. We're just speculating here, knowing full-well that Shakespeare isn't his plays, but also that their elements must at least indicate what he himself had interests in, the things which preoccupied his fancy.

>> No.12548560

>>12548422
Not a single point about him can be deduced by attributing the thoughts of his characters to him. For that, we have to look at what the text itself says about the man who composed it. His agnostic characters only tell us he knows what it is to doubt his religion well enough to portray it, not that he was agnostic. His plays also tell us he read a variety of religious books and seems to have had a strong admiration for some of them.

>> No.12548599

>>12548408
not sure what you mean
the hypotheais about his upbringing is based around facts about his life, like his catholic father and the fact that he was tutor for a prominent famoly with catholic sympathies
his 'paganist' bent is to be found largely in the imagery of his poetry, not in the views or beliefs of any of his characters. he is constantly turning to nature for poetic inspiration. even when he is directly alluding to scripture, the passages he chooses often invoke images from nature, as in the falling sparrow from hamlet/matthew.

>> No.12548898

>>12548599
>his 'paganist' bent is to be found largely in the imagery of his poetry,
This is what I mean. Everyone used pagan imagery in his poetry back then.

>> No.12549338

>>12548898
that's not exactly true, and kind of beside the point. it's not just the imagery, either. it's how nature is conceived, as the source of all the wonderful variety of experience; that from which all things spring forth, and to which all things fall back.
shakespeare doesn't show much of a preference for any received set of beliefs, but he is often severely critical of christianity in particular--at least when religious doctrine is paired with secular power, out of pride or personal gain. c.f. measure for measure, the merchant of venice, and so on.
he borrows from as many sources as were available to him, but i don't think it's merely incidental that he seems to favor writers from antiquity, like plutarch and aristotle and especially ovid.

>> No.12549494

>>12545736
You’re right. People’s deepest set beliefs concerning the governance of their life and soul never influence their actions, thoughts, or opinions.

>> No.12549496

>>12549338
good points

>> No.12549677

>>12549338
>that's not exactly true
yeah it is

>> No.12549684

>>12549338
>merely incidental that he seems to favor writers from antiquity, like plutarch and aristotle and especially ovid.
A 16th century writer likes ovid, what a pagan

>> No.12549691

>>12545523
*Catholic
It’s not really worth noticing. It was the fucking 1500-1600s mate lmao

>> No.12549693

>>12549684
i think you conveniently ignored everything else he elaborated on

>> No.12549724

>>12549693
>i think you conveniently ignored everything else he elaborated on
probably because it lacked any substance. There's no real harsh criticism of Christianity in Shakespeare's work, conceptions of nature are common to pretty much all poets, and nearly every poet of that age wrote pagan themed poetry because they were products of the educational system of their time. Spenser, Marlowe, Jonson, later even Milton.

>> No.12549891 [DELETED] 

>>12545523
Why can’t people accept the that Shakespeare was black?

>> No.12549900

>>12545885
They don’t like to acknowledge his Moorish ancestry, or the fact that Moors ruled England at all.

>> No.12549905

>>12545795
>Poop over Sterne
ok

>> No.12549942

>>12546629

Most of the dogma comes from figures like Paul and not Jesus, just going by what Jesus said and removing all the later additions, it's more or less the Jewish version of the prototypical eastern mystic

>> No.12549967

>>12545523
it's like using a hammer to drill holes in the wall. I believe it's called perversion

>> No.12550009

>>12549942
are you the same based anon who the other day mentioned in a thread about how jesus's wisdom shines through his gospels, but people like paul formalized it into a dogma which has subdued it of the genuine gnosis it contained?

>> No.12550103

>>12549942
>Most of the dogma comes from figures like Paul and not Jesus
>Paul wasn't known to and in communion with the apostles who had known Jesus personally

>> No.12550123

>>12545774
Why is he the greatest writer? His poetry to me seems ok, but not really the best. His stories are great, but the poetry to me is meh, and that is supposed to be why he is so great.

>>12545523

Idk. It seems like a lot of people also have trouble accepting that he was also either bi- or homosexual.

>> No.12550148

>>12546245
Imo the Brits and most of Europe are going to genocide the Muslims soon. Ive been following gilet jaunes and a lot of the French are pissed and what has happened to some icons of France, like the Arc de Triomphe, and that they can no longer walk up to the Eiffel tower because they had to fence it off so rag heads didn't destroy it. And germans are starting to get pissed that the arabs kids in the schools aren't speaking German so the German kids are having to learn Arabic to participate with them.

>> No.12550160

Shakespeare toed the line with Christian Occultism (see stuff like The Tempest and Midsummer Night's Dream).

>> No.12550168

>>12545788
>>12545795
nice job trying to imply that shakespeare died and went to hell because he wasn't in a state of grace

>> No.12550201

>>12549724
you seem determined to turn this into a situation where only one of us can be definitively right, namely you, which i think if were allowed to continue would make us both look ridiculous.
shakespeare did not write treatises or tracts denouncing creed, no. but he does show us ostensibly christian figures behaving hypocritically, even in the name of christ. as before, both measure for measure and merchant of venice contain prime examples of this.
shakespeare was part of the english renaissance. he shares with his near contemporaries an interest in classical works and themes, yes. he is not unique in this, and that's not what i was claiming. rather, i think there is something to be said about the weight he seems to lend to these differing perspectives. again, it's not just that he uses natural imagery, or that he takes up classical themes, or that his characters invoke pagan deities. he seems both fascinated and delighted by nature that suggests more than just an interest. i don't think he worships at any alter, but his greatest praise is always reserved for the world as he found it, and not christ.

>> No.12551052

>>12545803
Based

>> No.12551058
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12551058

Why can't people accept that Christ was Shakespearean?

>> No.12551087
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12551087

>>12547377
>One dogma is often laid in the form of 'hate the sin, not the sinner'
Which was said by Gandhi, a Hindu.

>> No.12551113

>>12545955
That's Samuel Johnson FAGGOT

>> No.12551122

>>12546988
>A good deal of his sonnets are literally — not figuratively, not metaphorically, not ambiguously — about him calling a boy sexy
Prove it

>> No.12551137

>>12545523
Shakespeare is unironically one of the most nihilistic writers in the cano

>> No.12551210

>>12545868
Fuggin up boat xd

>> No.12551217

>>12551122
FROM fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light'st flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
that's numbah wan
over 120 of them are addressed to the same young man.

>> No.12552325

>>12551217
cringe

>> No.12552644

>>12550148
You must be 18 years old to post.

>> No.12552742
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12552742

>>12545523
Because he was actually Muslim and people can sense this deep down.

>> No.12552772

>>12546988
>A good deal of his sonnets are literally — not figuratively, not metaphorically, not ambiguously — about him calling a boy sexy.
Which is perfectly consistent with him being Muslim subhanallah. The very conqueror of Constantinople who was prophesied by Mohammed wrote love poems about a Christian boy.

I saw an angel, a sun face
or this world's moon
Black hyacinth curls,
smoky sighs of lovers
An alluring cypress
clad in black, like the moon
in night of Franks
whom his beauty rules
If your heart is not bound
in the knot of heathen belt,
You're no true believer,
but a lost soul among lovers
His lips give life anew
to those whom his glances kill
Just so, for that giver of life
follows the way of Jesus
Avni have no doubt,
that beauty will one day be tame
For you are ruler of Istanbul
and he the lord of Galata.

http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/poe/poe74.html

>> No.12552795

The plethora of interpretations of the mans private life and personal beliefs just points to the dearth of scholarship on the subject which points to the dearth of biographical materials he left behind. OPs question can be posed in another way: why did they destroy all his other writings, documents, and records?

>> No.12552797

>>12552772
>Which is perfectly consistent with him being Muslim subhanallah
It's also consistent with him being a faggy English theatre geek.

>> No.12552813

>>12552797
Wrong, Chad Marlowe wasn't a faggot

>> No.12552825

>>12552795
>why did they destroy all his other writings, documents, and records?
Nobody destroyed anything. Manuscripts maybe, but not for suppression but because they weren't valued. Legal documents are still around. Old quartos probably just fell apart or were recycled. The amount of info we have on Shakespeare is pretty much what would be expected of an Elizabethan playwright.

>> No.12552829

>>12552813
huh? I didn't say anything about Marlowe.

>> No.12552905

>>12552829
He was also an English theatre geek but not faggy

>> No.12553451

>>12552905
ok? what does that have to do with Shakespeare being faggy?

>> No.12553482

>>12551087
St. Augustine said it first.