ABSTRACT
That ‘kings are gods’ was hardly a radical notion in early modern England; firmly biblical, it was repeated again and again in pulpits, in print, and by kings themselves. Refracted through Reformation-era polemics about the nature of canonization, the euhemeristic aesthetic in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the writings of John Donne examines the affective and intellectual impact of authority on the thoughts and feelings of subjects, and in so doing captures the ambiguities of witnessing sovereignty after the Reformation. Rather, Hamlet’s ‘canonized bones’ are interesting because they express his – and more widely his culture’s – worry about whether recognizing authority and creating it can ever be securely distinguished. For Robert Greene and his contemporaries, euhemeristic confusion became a vehicle for exploring the confusions of post-Reformation political theology. In this way, the euhemeristic aesthetic aims to efface but also winds up throwing into relief the jarring impulses of obedient reverence and iconoclastic suspicion.
