Shakespeare Club meeting 12 May 2026

The Club’s 979^th meeting was held on Tuesday 12 May 2026 when Professor Alison Shell of University College London gave a talk entitled Shakespeare and the Jesuits:Spiritual Direction in King Lear. The meeting was chaired by Karolyn Brookes.

Dr Shell began by explaining the presence of Catholicism Shakespeare’s England, and the divisions within Catholicism itself.

The extreme Catholic order, the Jesuits, had been founded by Ignatius Loyola in the 1500s in reaction to the rise of Protestantism in Europe. His influential book Spiritual Exercises outlined devotional practice. By the end of Elizabeth 1’s reign, so-called Appellant pamphlets criticising Jesuits were becoming common.

Samuel Harsnett’s 1603 A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures aimed to vilify the Jesuit order, as did other publications by Church of England clerics. The practice of exorcism was particularly associated with the Jesuits, who were suspected of being power-hungry. Harsnett’s book was published just months after James 1 came to the throne and the 1605 Gunpowder Plot made it clear that Catholicism in general, and Jesuits in particular, were a threat to the government of England.

In the second part of her talk Dr Shell described how Shakespeare incorporated Jesuit beliefs and practices into his plays. There are several indications in Macbeth that Shakespeare was familiar with the idea of equivocation. However it is in King Lear, written 1605-6, that Shakespeare’s interest in Jesuitical practices is clearest. Some of the contents of Loyola’s book and Harsnett’s response to it were common knowledge and Shakespeare’s audience would have recognised the references.

Harsnett’s Declaration is recognised as a direct source for some parts of the play describing, among other practices, exorcism and the feigning of madness.  Jesuit devotional and meditational manuals were also available and at least one of these, clandestinely circulated, advocated the Jesuit practice of “spiritual direction”.

Dr Shell looked at two scenes that show how much Shakespeare knew about these publications. The scenes she focused on were the mock-trial of Goneril and Regan, and the Dover Cliff scene.  In both of these, Edgar is the primary vehicle for Jesuit practice, in particular spiritual direction in which a priest does not just carry out the rituals of the church, but actively influences action.

In the first, Edgar, as Poor Tom, supports Lear who describes him as a philosopher and listens to his advice. Poor Tom can be seen as an outlawed Catholic priest, perhaps disturbingly offering the King spiritual direction.

At Dover Cliff Edgar again takes control, acting as spiritual director for his blinded father. He protects and eventually heals the Duke of Gloucester by putting him through an ordeal, as suggested by the Jesuits. In this case he is made to imagine that he jumps from the cliff, and miraculously survives.

The Spiritual Exercises encouraged the use of the imagination “in order to protect the believer from the sins of the world”. This quote came from modern academic Frederic Conrod, who also suggested that this Jesuitical practice may have unintentionally led to the secular development of the theatre where author, actors and audiences were encouraged to use their imaginations.

Shakespeare’s attitude is ambiguous: elsewhere in the play he criticises the Jesuit practice of flattery used by Lear’s daughters Goneril and Regan. Dr Shell concluded that while Shakespeare offered a warning to dissuade people from following the Jesuits, he also displayed interest in their beliefs and practices. He does not come down on either side of the argument regarding Catholicism and the Jesuits.

Club members responded to Dr Shell’s thought-provoking talk with many questions on the subjects she had raised.