ABSTRACT

This chapter provides attention to Antony and Cleopatra, Pericles, and The Winter's Tale, to explore how Shakespeare draws on the enduring sense of threat behind. And the imaginative power of, miracles in post-Reformation England to demonstrate how Marian efficacy holds a greater seat in his distracted globe. For English Protestants, Marian iconography and pilgrimage sites were seen as touchstones of Roman Catholic idolatry. English Reformer John Jewel sought to unveil the mechanism whereby the Roman Catholic Church appealed to believers through the proliferation of Marian iconography, and the careful localization of images. Shakespeare casts the influential nature of Marian iconography in a more visible light in Pericles and The Winter's Tale to demonstrate the full scope of Marian efficacy. By drawing on the efficacy of Marian virtue, Shakespeare's theater is able to redefine the value of incestuous desire and erase notions of patriarchal tyranny.