In "The Shakespeare Code," in this week's National Catholic Register, Fr. Andreas Kramarz reports on a new book in Germany making the most persuasive case yet that Shakespeare was Roman Catholic. It's based on new evidence that Shakespeare's "lost years" were spent at a school in France for persecuted English Catholics, that Shakespeare made several trips to Rome, and that he funded a safe house with an elaborate network of tunnels for the Catholic underground, suitably close to The Globe, where the persecuted had easy access to disguises. The book's not in English and the article's not on-line, so you'll have to trust me. Or get your hands on the Reg. The book reads Sonnet 29 in an entirely new way.
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,--and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings'.
Not a homosexual lover, as the litcrits would have it, but Jesus! And that fits with this guy's view that the Merchant of Venice is about the Eucharist. Now go read Sonnet 66 in that light.
