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THE TRIAL OF MAN
Christianity and Judgment in the World of Shakespeare
By Craig Bernthal
List Item No. 342
ISBN: 1-932236-03-1(cloth)
300 pages
List Price: $25.00
Internet Special: $21.25 — PRE
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Shakespeare often used trials or scenes in which his characters are subjected to judgment—especially divine judgment—to bear the dramatic burden of his plays. In The Trial of Man: Christianity and Judgment in the World of Shakespeare, Craig Bernthal, a lawyer and Shakespeare scholar, shows how understanding the Elizabethan religious and legal context in which Shakespeare lived illuminates many of Shakespeare's works, including The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, Measure for Measure, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, Henry VIII, and Henry VI, Part II.
"Judgment," writes Bernthal, "is the archetypal situation for Shakespeare, the one event that every human being will have to face, on one or both sides of the grave." Bernthal's study portrays a Shakespeare heavily indebted in his notions of judgment—and in the comic and dramatic uses to which he puts—to the doctrines of Christian theology, both Catholic and Protestant. Bernthal also shows how the legal culture and trials of Shakespeare's time, including the famous trial of Sir Walter Raleigh, influenced Shakespeare's approach to the difficulties surrounding human judgment—how to assess the truthfulness of testimony, determine the appropriate degree of punishment, and evaluate the justice of proposed remedies. Above all, Bernthal carefully attends to the ways in which Shakespeare probed the tension between justice and mercy in all its complexity.
Written for the lay reader, The Trial of Man is a captivating synthesis of literary, historical, and legal scholarship.
What They're Saying...
"Written for the lay reader, provides a captivating synthesis of literary, historical, and legal scholarship."
—ForeWord
"Former trial lawyer Bernthal homes in on the occasions of the trial and judgment in plays spanning Shakespeare's career from Henry IV, Part 2 (1589) to Henry VIII (1613), and he places them within the Christian context of Shakespeare's England, which understood that justice is real and administered by a just God who endowed humans with morality and the reasoning faculty to do good."
—Booklist (Starred Review)
"In this lucidly written, passionately presented study of selected Shakespearean trial scenes, Craig Bernthal argues the case, in defiance of currently dominant trends in criticism and scholarship, for attending to and cherishing the fundamentally moral character of Shakespeare's plays."
—Philip C. McGuire, author, Speechless Dialect: Shakespeare's Open Silences and Shakespeare: The Jacobean Plays
"Given the continuing dreary state of Shakespeare studies, exhausted as it has become in the past three or four decades of reductive theorizing, Craig Bernthal's The Trial of Man is refreshingly original in its insights into the conception of justice and the legal systems on which Shakespeare drew to address the particular social and cultural concerns of his time. Craig Bernthal employs, to his advantage, his legal training and years as a practicing lawyer and explores the roles of individual deliberation and choice in the shaping of both tragic and comic action. Colleagues and students will find especially rewarding Bernthal's reading of The Merchant of Venice and Measure for Measure."
—Douglas L. Peterson, Professor Emeritus, Michigan State University
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