Mary, the mother of Jesus

In Christianity according to the New Testament, Mary (Judæo-Aramaic מרים Maryām "Bitter"; Septuagint Greek Μαριαμ, Mariam, Μαρια, Maria; Arabic: Maryem, مريم) was the mother of Jesus of Nazareth and at the time of his conception was the betrothed wife of Joseph, awaiting the customary "Home-Taking" that would permit them to start living together and to consummate their marriage (cf. Matt 1:18, 20). Most Christians and Muslims understand the Gospel account in this respect to mean that Mary was a virgin when she conceived Jesus through a miracle of God.

Mary and Shakespeare

In sixteenth-century England, veneration of Mary was a central issue in public controversy about the sense of scriptural text, religious images, and religious practices in Christian life. Some leading figures in sixteenth-century England considered pilgrimages to Marian shrines and praying the rosary to be unscriptural, superstitious, and/or idolatrous. From 1535 to 1538, under orders from Henry VIII, all Christian shrines in England were destroyed. Most of these shrines were Marian shrines, and they included the highly popular shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, as well as other popular shrines at Ipswich, Worcester, Doncaster, and Penrise.

Related Topics:
Shrine - Rosary - Henry VIII - Our Lady of Walsingham

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At the same time, Mary rose dramatically in popularity as a given name for baby girls in sixteenth-century England. About 1500 in Warwick County, England, perhaps only 1% of baby girls were named Mary. By 1600, the share of baby girls named Mary had risen to about 10%.http://www.galbithink.org/sense-s8.htm This change is remarkable in light of extensive government efforts during that same period to extirpate veneration of Marian images and direct Christian worship to the written word.

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William Shakespeare had keen appreciation for the controversy over the sense of Mary in Christian life. Concern about the relationship between words and images, and players, shadows, and real persons, pervades Shakespeare's work. His play, Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 5, includes a dialogue, formally organized as a sonnet, that uses Marian pilgrimage to figure Romeo's wooing of Juliet. The last scene in The Winter's Tale includes instructions from Paulina that place Perdita in the position of asking the statue of Hermione for intercessory prayer, much as a pilgrim to a Marian shrine might have prayed before an image of Mary. Turmoil about the sense of Mary in sixteenth-century English history is closely related to the development of Shakespeare's theatre, according to some critics.

Related Topics:
Shakespeare - Romeo and Juliet - The Winter's Tale - Critic

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