Introduction

This special issue aims to participate in the ‘turn to religion’ experienced by Shakespearean scholarship in the last few decades by delving into an undeveloped field of research within the area of Shakespeare studies: the author's religious afterlives.1 By focusing on specific case studies, we propose to analyse how the author and his work have been used to illustrate and support theological and educational concepts; translated considering the implications of biblical intertextuality; variously recreated in religious terms and in different religious contexts; and taught from religious and spiritual standpoints.