He heard Mass in someone's attic or someone else's cellar. His father was arrested. His schoolmasters were suppressed, and one of their order was tortured to death in public an event he probably witnessed. Shakespeare was neck-deep in the violence between militants of two faiths, and yet he stood silent. Wilson (Renaissance studies, U. of Lancaster) closely examines what Shakespeare did not write about his own life and conscience, about the choices he consciously or unconsciously made in his themes and tropes to remain concealed, and how critics even today cannot quite read his heart. He finds ghostly fathers in Shakespeare's schoolmaster Jesuits, secrets in the Italian comedies and the forests of Arden, stripped altars, Scottish martyrs, and, above all, subjects silent before monarchs who demand their love. Distributed by Palgrave. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)