and the Supernatural

oup.com/Shakespeare

Smidt, Kristian, “Spirits, Ghosts and Gods in Shakespeare”, English Studies, 77:5, 425. Alchin, L.K., Elizabethan Era, Retrieved 23 October

2015 from www.elizabethan-era.org.uk. “Shakespeare characters, sorted by number of speeches”, Open Source Shakespeare, Retrieved 23 October 2015 from www.opensourceshakespeare.org. “Occult”

in Oxford English Dictionary. “Special Effects,” Globe Education, Retreieved 23 October from www.shakespearesglobe.com/uploads/

files/2014/06/special_effects.pdf.

COMPARING DOCTRINE

1521 1542 1545 1562 1566 16041597

“occult”

POPE LEO X issued a Bull

ensuring that the Religious Courts of the Inquisition would execute

people convicted of Witchcraft

KING HENRY VIII passed the Witchcraft Act, six years after

the beheading of his second wife,

Anne Boleyn

The word “OCCULT” first

appeared in English meaning

“that which is hidden or

is beyond the range of ordinary apprehension and

understanding”

A second Witchcraft Act was passed

during the reign of QUEEN

ELIZABETH I, but was more lenient than past laws

The first witch trial to appear in a secular

court in England resulted in the first woman to be hanged for

witchcraft: AGNES WATERHOUSE

King James VI of Scotland

(later King James I of England) published his Daemonologie

KING JAMES I released his

statute against witchcraft, in

which he wrote that witches were “loathe to confess

without tortue”

WITCHCRAFT IN THE 16TH CENTURY

FAMOUS MAGICIANS & ASTROLOGERS

Paracelsus

Dr. Johann Faust

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

Roger Bacon

Simon Forman

Non-Shakespearean ghosts would shriek on stage, but Shakespeare’s ghosts were very often dignified and stately

The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s

Dream are widely regarded as two of

Shakespeare’s most “magical” plays

ARIEL The Tempest

SUPERNATURAL BEINGS WITH THE MOST SPEECHES

45PUCK(Robin Goodfellow)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

33

OBERON A Midsummer Night’s Dream

TITANIAA Midsummer Night’s Dream

2329

The Tempest

The Comedy of Errors

Twelfth Night

Julius Caesar

2 Henry VI

Henry VIII

Hamlet

Macbeth

1 Henry VI

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

247 ACCUSED

WOMEN

23 ACCUSED MEN

270 Elizabethan witch trials

Demons and spirits usually appeared and disappeared on stage accompanied by

the sound of thunder and lightning

ONLY 10 OUT OF

SHAKESPEARE’S 37 PLAYS

CONTAIN SPOKEN LINES

BY SUPERNATURAL BEINGS

27%