Shakespeare’s Christianity: The Supernatural in Hamlet and Macbeth

This article focuses on the supernatural in Hamlet and Macbeth with considering the religious contexts and conflicts of the sixteenth century in England for arguing the question of “Is Shakespeare’s use of supernatural in Hamlet and Macbeth more indicative of Catholic or Protestant belief?” Both these great tragedies use the supernatural as a key role and supernatural elements in these plays engage with the religious debates and controversies of the period so that the knowledge of the religious contexts can shape the readers’ response to the supernatural in Hamlet and Macbeth. Therefore, this paper’s aim is exploring Shakespeare’s use of supernatural in religious views. In this study, after the religious context of Elizabethan era and audience are given, Shakespeare’s use of supernatural in both plays are examined in depth, especially in terms of Christianity with its professions: Catholicism and Protestantism. All of these supernatural elements are linked with Christian theology and it leads Shakespeare’s readers to gain a religious perspective towards the supernatural in Hamlet and Macbeth. In the process of it, the supernatural theme in both Hamlet and Macbeth is going to be compared with each other in terms of their kinds. In Hamlet, supernatural theme comes from some elements like ghost and the doctrine of purgatory, while witchcraft and the prophecy in Macbeth can be also examples of the supernatural. After all, the main question of this study, which is stated before, naturally reveals in minds. The answer of this debatable question is the main argument of this article with comparing the existence of these supernatural elements in both beliefs. Therefore, the supernatural in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Macbeth are examined in religious perspectives with theological details.