The Universal Shakespeare Creed gathers together 11 essays by an international team of leading scholars addressing crucial aspects of Shakespeare’s transnational and transcultural religious afterlives.
From the very beginnings of Shakespeare criticism, religion and spirituality are argued to have been vital in shaping attitudes towards Shakespeare’s works and in constructing the playwright as an author with a universal appeal and an ethical agenda of universal application. Various of his works are shown to be deeply embedded in the universal store of myth and wisdom literatures and therefore adaptable to the key teachings and ethical practices of some of the world’s major faiths. What is more, far from being merely spiritual, the universal Shakespeare creed is shown to be a force for positive action in society, raising awareness about issues of race, class and gender and, through adaptation and performance, contributing to building community and a juster society.
Innovative and wide-ranging, The Universal Shakespeare Creed will be essential reading for all those with an interest in the reception of Shakespeare and, more broadly, in intersections between literature, spirituality and religion.
Marta Cerezo is Professor of English Literature at the UNED (National University of Distance Education, Spain) Her current area of research is devoted to Shakespeare and religion and, most especially, to the Shakespeare commemorative sermons delivered at Holy Trinity Church (Stratford-upon-Avon) since the nineteenth century. She is Chief Editor of Sederi Yearbook, the journal of the Spanish and Portuguese Society for English Renaissance Studies. She leads the UNED research group ELSSO (English Literary Studies in Society) and is currently the Principal Investigator of the Research Project PID2021-123341NB-I00 ‘Shakespeare’s Religious Afterlives: Text, Reception, and Performance’ (SHAKREL).
Jonathan P. A. Sell is Professor of English Literature at the Universidad de Alcalá, Spain. His principal fields of research are early modern literature, Shakespeare and literary aesthetics. His publications include Rhetoric and Wonder in English Travel Literature, 1560-1613 (Ashgate, 2006; Routledge, 2019) and the prize-winning, two-part essay on the Shakespearean sublime, Shakespeare’s Sublime Ethos: Matter, Stage, Form (Routledge, 2022) and Shakespeare’s Sublime Pathos: Person, Audience, Language (Routledge, 2022).
