Kaufman s book is successful in its aims, and they are important ones; by it, not only will Shakespeare s culture become more comprehensible for general readers, but also Shakespeare scholars and those studying other aspects of Renaissance English life will come away with a sharper, more accurate conception of the period s maelstrom of religious influences and, I cannot but think, with a healthy reluctance to indulge in oversimplification about it. I heartily recommend this book to specialists and nonspecialists alike. John E. Curran Jr., Renaissance Quarterly" Peter Iver Kaufman examines in impressive detail the religious soil in which Shakespeare s plays flourished. By offering an expert survey of an immensely complex terrain, this book will serve those who want to scrutinize the religious discourses embedded in the plays. This book is significant, then, for Shakespearean scholars, for scholars of early modern English non-Shakespearean drama, and for historians of the English Reformation. Its originality derives from the author s command of his special subject: no other historian of religion has examined early modern English religion with as scrupulous and searching an eye to its potential Shakespearean connections.

The value of the book lies in its extended examination of the religious pastures, seemingly outside the plays boundaries, into which the plays occasionally wander. It s difficult to think of any recent book to which Kaufman s can be accurately or extensively compared, an originality that will be its chief source of value for literary scholars. They will deeply profit from what this distinguished historian of religion has provided. Richard Mallette, Lake Forest College".