Missionary Dramatists

A review of Jeffrey Knapp’s Shakespeare’s Tribe in the November 7 TLS begins with the comment that Elizabethan dramatists approached their work with a missionary aim: “Countering the fears of religious commentators who believed acting to be nothing more than hypocrisy, this approach admitted the element of deception in theatre but saw dramatic entertainment as a way of cozening the viewer into religion and morality. It went hand in hand with the idea that communal festivity was beneficial to society, and the tendency ?Einspired by a selective reading of Erasmus and other eirenically minded theologians ?Eto minimize the contentious points in religion.” Shakespeare in particular, Knapp argues, had this aim: “As Knapp sees it, Shakespeare presents the collective endeavour of actors and audience as a sacramental activity to compare with, or even rival, those taking place in church.” In his interpretation of He nry V, which begins with whispered plottings among high-placed bishops, the hero “champions communal enterprise” and the Chorus calls on the audience to take part in the imagining of the play. Knapp: “Harry steals communion from the clergy, and the theater steals communion from Harry.”