Forum on 15 – Shakespeare’s Bohemia: Terror and Tolerance in Early Modern Europe

Shakespeare’s Bohemia: Terror and Tolerance in Early Modern Europe Alfred Thomas argues that far from being ignorant of the location and significance of Bohemia in his play “The Winter’s Tale” (as Ben Jonson famously stated), William Shakespeare could easily have heard about this landlocked country’s ecumenical reputation for religious toleration from English players returning to London from central European cities like Danzig, Koenigsberg and Prague, where they performed their plays in English. In the same year that “The Winter’s Tale” was performed at court in London (1609), Rudolf II issued his “Letter of Majesty” which granted religious toleration to his Protestant subjects within the Habsburg territories. This lecture argues that this was no coincidence and that Shakespeare’s plays “King Lear” and “The Winter’s Tale” can be read as impassioned appeals not only for religious toleration in an intolerant age but also provide a powerful contrast between the oppressiveness of English religious politics and the more enlightened situation in France and Central Europe in the early years of the seventeenth century.