Fear and Loathing in Shakespeare Studies

In a 2021 essay for Shakespeare Survey 74, "Counterpublic Shakespeares in the American Education Marketplace," Notre Dame's Jillian Snyder raises questions about the state of Shakespeare studies, especially where religion and literature are concerned. Snyder paints with a broad brush, dividing backward Christians from secular progressives, so that I find myself cast into her special Gehenna along with my fellow Christians. Snyder knows how to start with a good hook: "Imagine this scene: an American high school student picks up an edition of Macbeth." Given the current state of public school curricula, one might breathe a sigh of relief. But something wicked this way comes and, lo and behold, this is a scary edition of Shakespeare. How scary is it? Gird your loins, because we're talking about a fundamentalist Christian edition of Macbeth published in 2004 by Abeka publishers of Pensacola, Florida. Marketed to homeschooling parents for their twelfth graders, the Abeka Macbeth is not what it seems.