Shakespeare and the Rose of Love by Vyvyan John

Offering an unusual and exceptionally clear insight into Shakespeare’s philosophy and a viewpoint seldom considered, this book argues that his philosophy was consistent, consciously held, and profoundly Christian. Showing that Shakespeare appreciated the danger faced in writing at a time of major religious intolerance, it explains how the playwright used the medieval allegory of love to veil his ideas. Fresh and fascinating, this record also demonstrates that, even in his earliest work, Shakespeare was moving toward the universal ideas of love, forgiveness, and regeneration. Love’s Labour Lost, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Romeo and Juliet are discussed at length.

‘John Vyvyan’s books on the spiritual philosophy of Shakespeare aroused interest when they were first published in the early sixties … all who seek the true wisdom of Shakespeare will welcome this first republication of his trilogy for fifty years … [Vyvyan’s] scholarship and dogged research in opening the doors of the Christian-Platonic philosophy of the Renaissance and uncovering the vastness of Shakespeare’s spiritual universe pronounce him an intrepid pioneer in Shakespearean scholarship, whose work should now receive wider recognition.’   Jill Line, Temenos Academy Review
‘…more perceptive and convincing than a great deal that has ever been written on the subject ‘close and attentive scholarship ‘shrewd and ingenious observations.’ A.L. Rowse, Daily Telegraph
‘Original and stimulating, Mr Vyvyan’s thesis is important and serious: serious in the sense that his reading of the plays and his supporting reading into Shakespeare’s climate of ideas is deep, connected and wide.’ Times Literary Supplement