Religion Revisited: William Shakespeare, Nicholas Owen, and the Culture of Doppelbödigkeit

This article ties in with the recent interest in Shakespeare's biography and early modern religious discourses. In the following I will try to synthesise two seemingly disparate fields, respectively personalities: I will combine William Shakespeare and his literary work and Nicholas Owen, the master-builder of Jesuit priest holes of the time. As I will propose, the tertium comparationis could be the culture of Doppelbödigkeit, and according to my knowledge this topic has not been pursued to date. What I will not do in this article in the context of Shakespeare's biography, however, is to trace further possible Catholic influences on him, 2 nor maintain that he was a Catholic.