Shakespeare's Common Prayers

Daniel Swift's argument — that the Book of Common Prayer's contested, ambiguous liturgical language was a generative engine for Shakespeare's dramatic imagination — is original and carefully pursued across close readings of Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, and others. Reviews in Modern Philology, the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, and the Washington Post all engaged it seriously. The caveat that some connections lean on association rather than hard evidence is fair, but even partially demonstrated, this is a genuinely illuminating way to read Shakespeare.