Play dead: the living and the dead on the Shakespearean stage, 1587-1612

In late medieval English society the dead remained amongst the living through the Church’s all pervasive intercessory practices (memorial, commemorative, and liturgical services) to send succour to souls in Purgatory. In 1576 the Church of England officially dismissed the doctrine of Purgatory as an invented fiction and all intercessory services were abandoned effectively separating the living from the dead. Such cultural and religious changes were traumatic for many and even those who welcomed the reformed religion had to find new ways to remember the dead. My dissertation looks at four of Shakespeare’s great works (the Henry VI plays, Hamlet, Titus Andronicus, and Macbeth) and examines the ways in which, through performance, these plays create a space inhabited by the living and the dead which simultaneously evokes traditional dealings with the dead and mourning for those traditions thus allowing a re-imagining of relationships between the living and the dead.