Shakespeare’s Common Prayers: The Book of Common Prayer and the Elizabethan Age

The Book of Common Prayer (BCP) was first published in 1549 during the English Reformation and is the source of such well-known phrases as “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” and “speak now; or forever hold your peace.” Swift’s (English, Skidmore Coll.) contention that the BCP is Shakespeare’s “great forgotten source” may be a bit overblown—scholars have been documenting Shakespeare’s references to the prayer book for at least 75 years—but this volume is novel in that it examines at length Shakespeare’s use of this source in his plays during the period from the end of Elizabeth I’s reign through the beginning of James I’s. Swift’s approach here, as he acknowledges, is heavily influenced by New Historicist criticism, particularly that of Stephen Greenblatt. Indeed, Swift’s opening depiction of the recently crowned James I convening the Hampton Court Conference in winter 1604 deftly sets the scene for the rest of the book in New Historicist fashion.