The Anglican Theology of Richard Hooker & Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night

Richard Hooker’s theology, especially his recognition of Eternal Law, his concern for freedom of choice, his defence of liturgical forms and ceremonies and the concept of adiaphora, things indifferent, as expressed in The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, supported the distinctiveness of Anglicanism but also offered incidental support to the art form of drama as expressed on the Elizabethan stage. In the play, Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare, the ideas that Hooker puts forth in defence of Anglican forms and traditions, and his opposition to Puritanism is evidenced in the dramatic aspects of the characters of Malvolio, Feste and the plot involving Viola/Cesario.

Anglicanism owes its unique character to the way in which the Protestant Reformation unfolded in England. Its theological development can be traced through its relationship to the arts.  The seeds of Reformation had already appeared in the middle ages, in people like the English scholastic, John Wycliffe, but it took developments in Rome to spark a revolt, beginning first on the continent. Many scholars point to the theology of the late middle ages as  a catalyst for the Reformation because the focus had switched from faith and reason to absolute power in the papacy. The Italian Renaissance may have also indirectly ushered in the Protestant Reformation due to corruption, as in the sale of indulgences as a means of paying for St. Peter’s in Rome.  It was the perfect storm of teachings on infallible authority and corrupt religious practises that made the Reformation inevitable. While Italy responded by embracing Humanism, demonstrated by the works of Michelangelo which celebrate the beauty of the human form, those in Northern Countries returned to the Scriptures. Statuary and paintings in churches came to be associated with the the corruption of Rome.  Most imagery in  Churches on the continent was destroyed or hidden in response to the Second Commandment “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” (Exodus 20:4). Iconoclasm occurred in England under Henry VIII and Edward VI, but efforts to rid the Church of “popery” were interrupted by Queen Mary’s  ascension to the throne. It was her attempt to abort the effort to reform the Church, by returning it to Roman Catholicism, that may have contributed significantly to the formation of the English Church as it came to be known in the time of Hooker and Shakespeare. Peter Marshall suggests that “the frequent shifts and turns in government religious policy in the sixteenth century must have confused and disoriented people,” not really knowing whether they were Catholics or Protestants or something in between. The reign of Elizabeth I was a period of stability in the Church, but its retention of the episcopal system, clergy, and cathedrals, not to mention a rich liturgical and musical tradition, made it seem as though the English Reformation was a “myth that did not really happen.” It was out  of this unique compromise between Catholic forms and Protestant faith that the English Renaissance emerged. While anthropomorphic religious imagery was still suppressed in the English Church, similar to the  Protestant churches on the continent, the traditions of music, drama and poetry were allowed to flourish.

Just as Richard Hooker endeavoured to delineate the purpose of Scripture as separate  from human reason, Elizabeth I moved to separate religious content from the theatre. She issued a proclamation in 1559 “against plays that featured matters of religion.”  The primary purpose behind the proclamation was likely to keep the peace, but this mandated separation also unintentionally initiated the start of professional theatre in England. The law concerning religious controversy may also have been the catalyst for Shakespeare’s preference of setting his plays in the Mediterranean, especially. Italy. There was safety from authorities by making the setting foreign. The gods of ancient Greece and Rome are often called upon in Shakespeare’s plays, another side-effect of avoiding religion on the stage. In The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Hooker  draws on an example from ancient Greece in order to illustrate the intersection between Natural agents and Voluntary agents, deliberately reinforcing the Thomist influence in his formulation of Eternal Law. He viewed the creation of art as a human activity dependent upon the law of nature and therefore part of his understanding of Eternal Law. He states that “the same thing happens in nature as in art. If Phidias had unyielding and obstinate stone from which to carve, however great his skill may be, his work will lack beauty which it might have had if it had been more pliant.”When Hooker references Phidias, he is also honouring a tradition that ironically had its rebirth in the Italian Renaissance.  Although the ancient glory of Greece and Rome is often celebrated as the human achievement of a Classical age, Hooker views this as a path to humility before God. The law that comes naturally to the created world,  requires human beings to apply reason as they discover their own laws. Hooker saw a way to salvation that was not solely dependent on Scripture and did “not exclude philosophy, art, or science.” While he could, as a Churchman with authority, offer his rebuttal to the Puritans through formal discourse, Shakespeare as an artist, was required to find both nuanced and entertaining means to communicate views that were compatible with Hooker’s. 

Shakespeare’s art for the stage, while valued by the Elizabethans for its entertainment value, reinforced themes and ideas that were compatible with Hooker’s theology. Elizabeth Cohen, in her essay, “The Visible Solemnity: Ceremony and Order in Shakespeare,” focuses on the evidence presented in Shakespeare’s History plays, Richard II, and 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV and Henry V.  She points out that Samuel Johnson affirmed  that Shakespeare looked to Hooker for Ulysses’ statement on order in his play, Troilus and Cressida.  Cohen offers evidence that these plays have a political purpose, focusing on the role of the monarch. Although Hooker presents The Laws as a theological work, one can discern that a defence of the monarchy may be the subtext.  He does not appear to distinguish between the separatists and the Puritans in the Laws. He could clearly see that the threat to the liturgy, structure and ecclesiastical orders of the established Anglican Church would eventually lead to a threat to the monarchy itself.  Although this could be characterised as political, it is important to note that this was in defence of Elizabeth, anointed by God to reign. In his history plays, Shakespeare “dramatises the struggle between the law and the lawless, and he does so in large measure through the characters’ attitudes toward ritual and authority.”  Besides upholding the consecrated position held by the King, Shakespeare actively criticises the Puritans through the development of characters, such as Falstaff; however, this does not suggest that the character is as a stereotype any more than  Malvolio is in Twelfth Night, which will be discussed later. Both characters are presented as tragic figures solely because of Shakespeare’s skill and brilliance as a dramatist. Shakespeare makes them the object of the audience’s pity as a means of undermining their power and importance. It is an indirect strategy in contrast to Richard Hooker’s approach, who believed that the Puritans were an ambitious faction that posed a threat to the Monarch, the established Church, and human freedom in society.  Hooker’s problem with Puritans was that they were “turning insurrection into religion.” They were motivated by self gain, not religious conviction. The society that they envisioned for England was bleak, a theocracy devoid of decency, beauty or reason. 

The Puritans were hostile to the theatre. They objected to plays for the same reason they   objected to the liturgies in the Church of England, believing them to be “fraught with popish ceremonies.”   They thought that the theatre experience would remind people of Roman Catholicism, and that being reminded, they would easily succumb to ungodly living.  It is important to keep in mind that their first target during an earlier era in the Reformation, was the Mystery Plays which were amateur productions, developed locally in towns like York, Wakefield (Towneley) and Chester and were vestiges of the old religion. One would think that the Mystery Plays which depicted, for the most part, scenes from the Bible may have found some acceptance among Puritans, since they believed that the bible was altogether sufficient for salvation. However, it was not the content of the plays, but the delivery that was most objectionable. In modern times we think of plays first as literature, but this was not the case for the Mystery Plays or for the plays of the Elizabethan stage. Plays were performed often decades before they were ever published, so there was no literary component. Largely, it was the visual that the Puritans despised, as Anthony Munday warned, “There cometh much evil in at the ears,” “but more at the eyes; by these two open windows death breath into the soul.” Hooker, by contrast, identifies the eye “as the most active and receptive of all our senses, the organ by which to best make a deep and lasting impression.” There is no moral danger in looking because Hooker believed in the essential goodness of human beings, who through the use of reason, were capable of discernment. He directs this statement in support of the Anglican liturgies, ceremonies and vestments, but this also applies by extension to the theatre. Spectacle was an important component for the Mystery Plays, but as their productions waned during the Elizabethan era, the Puritans focused their attention on the burgeoning commercial theatre that was urban and more sophisticated. Their clamour for innovation was really a wish for a theocracy that restricted religious belief and cultural expression. Russell Fraser believed that these reformers reserved the “fiercest hatred for the drama,” but this antipathy “extended progressively to cover and interdict all forms of art as the impulse [grew] to apprehend the kernel of things.” Hooker would have identified this “kernel” as  “distinctive mode of human striving toward God.” He recognised that the Puritans were a threat, not only to Anglicanism and the Monarchy, but also to freedom and life. Their wholesale rejection of “right reason” as a means of exercising one’s conscious made them a dangerous cohort. Human beings by their very nature relied on “the light of reason so that they know truth from falsehood and good from evil.”  For all their efforts to “liberate” the English from the ceremonies and structures of the Roman Church and eliminate expressions of culture and art, the Puritans’ efforts were an attempt to enslave rather than free human beings.  

The Puritans had every reason to fear the theatre during the Elizabethan period, given the power of visual culture, ritual and acting. The Proclamation of 1559, which censored and restricted religious content in plays, forced dramatists like Shakespeare to find ways of expressing, in textual terms,  ideas about politics and religion in subliminal ways. Of course, the Puritans would have described their efforts as insidious. Restrictions on arts and culture has often  had a counter-intuitive effect, usually encouraging innovation and creativity, and the same could  also be said about religious expression. Perhaps it is an indication of the way that human beings, as voluntary agents who search for the good, continue to express themselves and look for meaning in their world. The destruction of images in the Reformation guaranteed that art would emerge in some other form in the Elizabethan era. The rise of the secular commercial theatre proved to be difficult to eradicate because it was not something that could be burned, smashed or destroyed like artworks or religious texts. It had popularity and economic clout, and had official approval, which  gave it some immunity from the Puritans’ wrath.  The strong ritual component of theatre meant that it was accused of being like the Catholic Mass. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that the Mass resembled the pre-Christian Classical dramatic forms of the Greco-Roman world.  For example,  William Shakespeare may have been a secular dramatist but he had a classical and religious education that influenced the theatre he created and inspired.  He was educated in English using the Book of Common Prayer, but he also understood Latin, the language of the Catholic Mass, as well as that of Virgil and Cicero.  England was a culture in transition, made more bearable because of the retention of “things indifferent,” which Hooker defends in The Laws, Book IV.  Ritual in the theatre experience and likewise, in the ceremony of the Church was “an enhanced level of consciousness, a memorable insight in to the nature of existence, a renewal of strength in the individual to face the world.” It was both cathartic and had a eucharistic or sacramental element to it. Since the experience required impersonation through acting, it was considered a deception by the Puritans and therefore by its very nature, it was deemed an immoral activity. The Puritans may not have fully understood the power of drama because if they had, they would not have attacked it simply on religious grounds. Human beings have always engaged in storytelling in order to understand themselves, their relationships and culture. The Elizabethan Theatre was a celebration and exploration of ideas where the “general and perpetual voice of mankind” could be heard.   The impact for audience members was emotional, mental but also spiritual.  From their writings, it seems that those who opposed both Catholic traditions retained by the Anglican Church as well as the theatre may have only understood things on a superficial level. They were preoccupied with appearances in the same way that their approach to biblical texts was literal.  If they had been able to look beyond “signs to causes,” in their own religious beliefs “at the root of the error,” they would not have been advocating for extreme reforms in the Church or the closing of theatres. Many of Shakespeare’s plays, including the history plays that have already discussed, have subtle theological, political and religious connotations. That cannot be said for his comedy, Twelfth Night, which directly challenged the Puritans and their ideology through character, dialogue and plot. 

Theatre has a sacramental aspect. The embodiment of language, more than any other element in the theatre, made the presentation of plays much closer in some respect to the Mass than the Anglican religious service, though this was not articulated by the Puritans. They approached scripture as literalists, and likewise viewed the Anglican Church and the theatre through a similar lens. They objected  to evidence of ‘popery’ such as the retention of ceremony and ecclesiastical orders. However, the reform of eucharistic theology meant that though the words of consecration were similar to the Roman Church, transubstantiation was not the consequence. It was not a sacrifice that was the work of the priest. Hooker confirms the belief of reformers when he states in the Laws that real presence of Christ’s body and blood is not  to be found “in the sacrament but  in the worthy receiver of the sacrament.”   Granted, there was no consecration happening in the Elizabethan theatre thanks to the Proclamation of 1559, but the words that were being spoken by the actor had more significance than simply a speech. They were the words of a playwright funnelled through an actor to further the dramatic action of the play. If we think about the actor as the element, then for the duration of a presentation before the audience, he becomes incarnate of that character. Paul Dean writes regarding Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night that the “idea of the actor embodying a role,” and the nature of  the Eucharist  serves as “a profound enquiry into the nature of being.” Central to the play is the notion of illusion and concealment where “nothing that is so, is so.”(IV.i.7). As close to Roman Catholicism and the belief in transubstantiation as that might seem, in theological terms, it is critical to keep in mind the importance of the reception of the audience in this exchange. That relationship between audience and actors, which is mutually dependent, actually brings the theatre experience closer to the theology of the Anglican Church.  

Twelfth Night is believed to have been written around 1601—1602 and was performed at the Feast of the Epiphany before Elizabeth I.  The power of comedy is deceptive, because on the surface it is entertaining, engaging an audience in laughter, but underneath serious issues and ideas are being explored and analysed.  It is not surprising to discover that many Puritan tracts were written condemning laughter and comedy.  As has already been discussed, theatre does not happen in a vacuum, but is dependent on the audience and actors for its existence . Then as now, drama had a theological and political dimension that either reasserted or undermined “the code of conduct of a given society.”  Shakespeare did not preach to his audience,  but they were certainly invited to think about what they were seeing, hearing and experiencing in the company of others. The collective nature of theatre made it an engaging and dynamic experience and therefore according to the Puritans, did not fulfil the functions of recreation. To begin with, the title of the play itself would have been an affront to the Puritans, since it marks a traditionally Catholic festival, the end of the Christmas Season. A festival, although a thing indifferent and therefore retained under the English crown, was a reminder of the Roman Catholic past. It is associated with carnival— “namely, emphasis on food, drink and sex, inversion of social roles, the taking time off work and the honouring of a saint.” Puritans would have felt equal amounts of disgust for economic as well as theological reasons. Festivals diverted people from their work, and instead encouraged “loitering and vain pastimes, and in refraining men from their handy labours and occupations.” Perhaps this attitude could also be explained by their own covetousness, since as Hooker pointed out, “they did not get the richest things and they often said as much.”  For example, Stephen Gosson, a former dramatist, who wrote The School of Abuse, may have criticised the theatre because of his own limited ability. When he produced plays, they were doctrinal and manipulative, conforming with his distrust of audience members to think of their own accord. Other historical evidence of tracts and activities suggest that the Puritans’ motivation for opposition to the things indifferent in both the Church and in culture may have had more to do with social and economic disadvantages than with religious conviction. 

In Twelfth Night,  Malvolio, who is identified as  “a kind of Puritan” is the most obvious challenge that Shakespeare offers in opposition to Puritans. (II.iv. 126) The name, Malvolio, like some others in the play, such as “Sir Andrew Aguecheek” and “Sir Toby Belch,” are a commentary on his character, “Mal” referring to evil or bad. He is branded in the play from the beginning as someone who is outside of this society.  Olivia, the aristocrat who employs him tells him that he is “sick of self-love” and “taste with a distempered appetite.” (I.v.82) He interrupts the festivities of Olivia’s uncle and his guest, and threatens to evict the uncle: “If you can separate yourself from your misdemeanours, you are welcome to the house. ” (II.iii.88-89)  He patrols the morality of those under Olivia’s roof as though he owns the place himself. His misplaced ownership of Olivia’s household is easily taken advantage of when Maria, the housemaid, through the use of a letter, tricks him into believing that Olivia desires him. Shakespeare uses the character of Malvolio to ridicule the moral weakness of the Puritans. He is a character who has more belief in the Chance of finding a letter, than in God. (II.v.159) Not God but “Jove makes [him] thankful.” (III.iv.69) His attraction to Olivia “is not so much to her person as to her riches”  While there is discretion with most visual elements in Shakespeare’s plays, in Twelfth Night, Malvolio’s costume of “yellow stockings” being “cross-gartered,” is specifically mentioned in the dialogue. Elizabeth I, who enjoyed the debut of this play, “disliked the colour yellow because it appeared in the flag of Spain.”  As well, cross-gartering was apparently a fashion favoured at the beginning of the seventeenth century with “old men and Puritans.” Hooker addresses the Puritans and sometimes goes as far as dismissing them, “our opponents say that our conformity gives Rome occasion to blaspheme…This hardly deserves a response.” However Shakespeare chooses to elicit pity for Malvolio by holding him up for ridicule. By allowing other characters to victimise him, Shakespeare exposes the Puritan weakness for material gain and their lack of religious conviction. By making Malvolio an object of shame, he publicly emasculates their power. 

The character of Feste functions in Twelfth Night as much more than simply entertainment, even though he is identified as a clown. The name of the character, as in the case of Malvolio, relates directly to the title of the play itself. Feste is derived from “Festival” and therefore connected to the Feast days that were offensive to the Puritans. Feste is the only character who frequently speaks directly of God or his saints. For example, he mentions St. Anne when confronted by Malvolio’s threats (II.iii.106) He has a comedic catechetical debate with his employer, Olivia, for mourning a brother that she knows is in heaven. (I.v.56-64). Olivia is not praying or mourning of her brother’s soul in purgatory. Only heaven or hell are the options here, which makes this an Anglican discussion. As well, Feste routinely refers to both Olivia and the other servant, Maria, as “madonna,” whose name is also a reminder of a Catholic heritage. Shakespeare is reminding his audience that these things that are indifferent are part of the Anglican tradition. Similarly, Hooker reminds the English that the ceremonies taken from their predecessors “are ancient rites and customs of the Church of Christ” that are not exclusively Roman but belong to them too. Feste’s impersonation of Sir Topas, the curate, comes dangerously close to breaching the Royal Proclamation against religious content.This deception is usually played for comic effect, which contrasts with the weight of Feste’s counsel for Malvolio: “I say that there is no darkness but ignorance.” (IV.ii.39-40) Feste catechises Malvolio as he did Olivia earlier in the play. The character of Viola/Cesario observes that Feste “is wise enough to play the fool.”(III.1.57)  In the tradition of the last day of Christmas,  which was about reversals and illusions, the character of Feste only appears to be an entertainer, in the same way that theatre appears to amuse. Viola truly sees his facade, largely because of her own. 

The plot that involves a love triangle between Viola, Olivia and Duke Orsino would have been highly offensive to Puritan sensibilities. In the drama, Viola, who is twin to her brother, Sebastian, conceals her gender and identity.   The Puritans thought that plays by their very nature promoted “hypocrisy and deceit,” “luring people into thinking a man is someone else.” It becomes even more complicated on the Elizabethan stage since women were not allowed to act; the role of Cesario required a young male to play a woman who in turn plays a man. The convention of males wearing female attire was also unacceptable to Puritans  because of “the Biblical injunction against men putting on women’s clothing.” Both Viola and her twin brother, Sebastian are saved from the storm that takes place before Twelfth Night unfolds. In the opinion of Maurice Hunt “along with the salt waves and tempests, the Anglican God as defined by Hooker, realises his Providence through the agency of time, which Viola chiefly trusts to work her happiness.” Viola’s happiness is fulfilled at the end when she reveals her true identity.  In the play, the Duke has really fallen in love with Cesario. His attraction to Cesario is seamlessly transferred to Viola in Act V, when he discovers the deception. Perhaps Duke Orsino’s pansexuality could be interpreted as Shakespeare’s provocative response to Puritan hysteria over the “inducement to sodomy” on the Elizabethan stage. 

Richard Hooker’s teaching of Eternal Law offered Elizabethans an expansive view of humankind within the natural world of God, in contrast to the Puritan’s restrictive and warped view that would use Scripture to limit human freedom. Hooker’s doctrine of adiaphora went beyond a defence of Anglican ceremonies and ecclesiastical polity, “recognising that its denial erodes not merely institutional liberty, but individual liberty as well.” The Puritan’s disdain for ritual and ceremony retained in the Anglican Church after the Reformation, extended to the next nearest target which was the theatre. In spite of their best efforts to weaken the Church and eliminate the arts, the natural human need for beauty, as a thing indifferent, continued to enrich the practice of faith in the Anglican Church, and engender freedom of expression in the theatre.