"We ignore poetry at our peril!"

Recently I enjoyed a lecture delivered by biographer Joseph Pearce about the Recusants. The lecture quickly narrowed in on the topic of Shakespeare, his family's place in the Recusancy, and some counterpoints to scholarly opinions that Shakespeare wasn't Catholic. These counterpoints and much of the substance for Pearce's lecture were taken from a new and promising biography of William Shakespeare that he is working on, complete with the wit and happiness that I've come to expect from this respected and accomplished Catholic writer.

So, at some time in the near future, we shall see another biography of William Shakespeare. What's so promising about it? The author closed his lecture by sharing with us his experience of talking to large audiences of young adults and college students about Catholicism. He admitted that these gatherings weren't advertised as such, but complete, undiluted, and orthodox Catholicism is what they received. What attracted these students to these lectures? None other than J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings in particular, culture in general. He concluded by saying that Shakespeare is like a weapon of "mass reconstruction" in a world beset by weapons of mass destruction. With a nod in the direction of some literary critics, I might add weapons of mass deconstruction. In other words, Shakespeare understood as a Catholic introduces cultural inroads to the hearts and minds of those who at once need to know the most about what Catholicism has contributed to art through artists, and who stand the greatest chance of reconstructing a culture that has been deconstructed at every turn. I don't know it yet, but after attending this lecture I expect that Pearce is writing a biography that will further establish answers to the question of Shakespeare's Catholicism, and all of this from a scholar who has strong convictions about the value of poetry.

One might read an interview with Joseph Pearce that suggests much to look forward to. In it he exclaims, "We ignore poetry at our peril!" I agree. When someone with this belief sets out to write a biography about William Shakespeare, I look forward to it with great interest, especially when I know the subject connects to Christ and His Church. These we ignore at our peril also.

Relevant Reading:

The Code Breakers - for some background on the debate and what I don't expect to see from Pearce.

Images of Possibility: Art Redeeming Culture - a good article from the St. Austin Review.