How can age-old works by profound playwright William Shakespeare help to shape our teaching establishments of today? This is a question that Dr David Torevell, Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Liverpool Hope and Visiting Professor at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick tackles in his latest publication.
Are Shakespeare’s plays inclined to Catholicism, to Protestantism, or to secularism? What kind of purchase do these categories – or some combination of them – give or fail to give on the plays? The debate is an old one, and shows no signs of abating. Nevertheless, a surprising tendency can be discerned.
Paradoxically, as the mainstream of the English-speaking world has passed from Catholic to Protestant and then to secular, scholarly consensus on Shakespeare’s own sympathies has moved in the opposite direction, from secular or Protestant back to Catholic.
I want to suggest that the study and performance of Shakespeare is an indispensable and creative resource for those working in Catholic and ecumenical schools, colleges and indeed, universities today.
My contention is that Shakespeare calls upon Catholic understandings of good and evil, sin and grace, vice and virtue, the body and the soul – in dozens of precisely identifiable ways – in order to make sense of those human experiences, and that Shakespeare’s unique use of Catholic sources remains powerfully relevant. I bracket here the question of whether or not the historical Shakespeare was himself Catholic. Although the tendency of historical scholarship is sympathetic to this possibility; my thinking remains upon the plays themselves.
I also do not contend that Shakespeare’s plays yield a comprehensive Catholic theology. Shakespeare is characteristically focused on a theologically informed anthropology (the intersection of divine and human love, the tendency toward good or evil in the person. He does not treat the more remote doctrine of God with which systematic theologians properly begin.
Shakespeare’s works are also quite naturally concerned with those theological issues prominent in his own time, above all the points of conflict between Catholic and reformed Christians. It is perfectly possible to keep Shakespeare squarely within his historical context.
And most importantly, I recognise that Shakespeare was a playwright and not an apologist. His plays do not allegorise Catholic dogma. However, with incomparable vividness, they do dramatise the complexities of human life and his creative interaction with Catholic tradition continues to speak powerfully to students and educators. Thus, Catholic readings of Shakespeare may be wisely applied to the ongoing and crucial task of Catholic and ecumenical education.
Dr David Torevell’s recently published book Exploring Catholic Faith in Shakespearean Drama. Towards a Philosophy of Education (Routledge, 2025), takes a deep dive into the impact of Shakespeare into ecumenical education. Co-authored with eminent British Jesuit Dr Luke Taylor and the American Shakespeare scholar Dr Brandon Schneeberger, this publication takes on chapters focusing on ethical and existential themes – love, desire, the body, marriage, virginity, evil, finitude, jealousy, and lies – the authors demonstrate Shakespeare’s wide-ranging engagement with early modern Catholic belief and practice.
At the same time, they argue that Shakespeare’s treatment of Catholic faith, through imaginative literature rather than magisterial discourse, and dramatically rather than didactically, provides a pedagogical model for contemporary teachers.
As the first volume to trace the relationship between a philosophy of Catholic education and Shakespearean drama, the book provides thought-provoking content for those working in a Catholic educational setting, particularly those tasked with strengthening the mission of their institution, as well as to scholars and researchers of literacy education, religious education, and to those interested in the dynamic between education and drama.