09.28.2023 - By ABC listen
William Shakespeare's world was marked by social change, spiritual tumult, and cosmic disorientation. Elizabeth I was on the throne, defining and defending England's Protestant reformation, and Europe now knew the Earth wasn’t the centre of the universe. So how secular — or perhaps, enchanted — was Shakespeare himself? Professor Kristen Poole from the University of Delaware is the author of The Bible on the Shakespearean Stage: Cultures of Interpretation in Reformation England and Supernatural Environments in Shakespeare's England: Spaces of Demonism, Divinity, and Drama. Professor Helen Smith is one of the editors of The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in Early Modern England, c. 1530-1700. This program was originally broadcast on 21 November 2021.