ABSTRACT

A drama such as Twelfth Night reveals that the dissonance can involve contested features of early modern Protestantism itself. Catholic motifs and allusions appear in Twelfth Night, but generally not as serious competitors with represented Protestant beliefs. The impression that providential grace follows from gracious behavior fixes William Shakespeare on the liberal left of the spectrum of sixteenth-century doctrinal Protestant opinions about election and the workings of Providence. Shakespeare’s character cannot lay claim to the unmediated grasp of “the purity of God’s own knowledge and will.” The Hookerian cast of Prospero’s Providence in The Tempest is consistent with other liberal Protestant features of the late romance.