What is it about?
The article offers the following explanation of why the biography of Shakespeare does not match the work, as acknowledged widely by Shakespeare scholars: the canon was influenced and possibly written in part or edited by the Jesuits. Specifically, the article introduces the English Jesuit missionaries John and Henry Floyd to readers, links them biographically to Shakespeare, and provides textual examples of their influence.
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Why is it important?
The article is timely, because it follows, coincidentally by a matter of days, the news that a First Folio of Shakespeare's work was discovered at the former library of the Jesuits at St. Omer in France. The article does much to explain why this is. It points out that John Floyd taught at the Jesuit college at St. Omer, beginning in 1616, the year Shakespeare died, at the insistence of the Jesuit superior so that Floyd would have access to the printing press. The article proposes that Floyd, whose biographical relationship to the Jesuit poet and martyr Robert Southwell is detailed, was the editor who added the dedication and the initials "W.S." to an edition of Southwell's work released by that press in 1616.
Perspectives
The article is important, because it explains in detail how the Jesuit John Floyd in his extensive political writings quotes and alludes to numerous works in the canon of Shakespeare to the point where he explicates their truest meanings and introduces the likelihood that he was involved in either influencing, writing, or editing the canon of Shakespeare, along with his brother Henry.
Ms Andrea C. Campana
independent researcher/writer
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: If a Jesuit Pope, Why Not a Jesuit Shakespeare? There's Something in the Air …, The Heythrop Journal, November 2014, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/heyj.12241.
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