Early Modern Views of Suicide

Overview

Para1According to English canon law (statutes) and common law (customary practices), suicide was understood as a homicide and was therefore a mortal sin. Firm Christian beliefs anchored early modern English culture and thus heavily influenced the law. The Bible’s reflections on suicide, most often understood from the perspective of Judas’ death, yielded negative stigma of the act. In commentaries from the Middle Ages, St. Augustine frowned upon suicide and instructed that a suicide was only legitimate when it was commanded by God as it was considered to be against natural law. Suicide was taken very seriously and so had serious repercussions in the early modern period, including in plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

Results of Death by Suicide

Para2In the early modern period, taking one’s own life by suicide resulted in negative consequences for the individual who ended their own life and for their families. A suicide’s property might be forfeited to the state. Most often, they were denied Christian burials completely. Often times, their body would have a stake driven through it, and when they were buried, they would receive no prayers and no burial in consecrated ground. Depending on the manner of suicide, how the body was dealt with afterward also varied. If the cause of death was by jumping from a tall place, the body might be buried beneath a mountain. If the victim drowned, they might be buried in sand.

Roman Influences

Para3While English canon and common law frowned upon suicide, suicide in the classical world was often considered an act of honor or bravery. According to Stoicism, a Hellenistic philosophy of will and the self, suicide was a mastery of emotion and a triumph over oneself; instead of being conquered by another, an individual conquered themselves. For example, when Brutus dies by suicide at the end of Julius Caesar, he views it as a far nobler act than being dragged back to Rome with the shame of his loss; none of his enemies triumphed over him; he triumphed over himself.
Para4In the Roman world, individuals chose suicide in order to escape public shame for their actions or failures. Women particularly might choose to take their own life to avoid shame. The most famous example of this is the ancient Roman story of Lucretia, who was raped by Sextus Tarquinius, an Etruscan prince. In Shakespeare’s Lucrece, based on Livy’s The History of Rome, after Lucrece was raped she sent for her father and husband and demanded that they avenge what had been done to her. Immediately afterward, she stabbed herself. Her act of self-slaughter led to a rebellion that resulted in the transition from a Roman monarchical rule to a republic. In the Roman worldview, Lucrece’s suicide was used as a model for martyrdom and as a symbol of the evils of tyranny.

Changing Views

Para5During the Renaissance, the definition and significance of suicide began to blur. Martyrdom was looked upon as an honorable act, but the Church began to debate at what point a martyr became a suicide victim. In the early 17th century, the poet and churchman John Donne’s Bianthanatos argued that suicide was honorable and used Christ as an example. Later, thinkers of the Enlightenment began to consider an individual’s self-inflicted death in terms of mental stability. If the person who died by suicide was found sane, then their suicide would be considered a felony.

Suicide in Shakespeare’s Works

Para6Shakespeare’s plays and poems draw a fine line between disgrace and honor when it comes to suicide. Many of Shakespeare’s tragedies feature suicide, but the forms and methods of the act are represented with both dignity and despair. How it should be interpreted depends on the character of the one dying by suicide. For instance, the suicides of Romeo and Juliet are depicted as acts of despair borne of misguided passion, while the death of Brutus is portrayed as an act of strength. The onstage, self-inflicted deaths of Anthony and Cleopatra represent their surrender to passion, while Goneril’s offstage suicide confirms her selfishness. Hamlet also famously considers suicide, but ulimately shys away from the act due to Christian beliefs.

Key Print Sources

Clare, Janet. “Buried in the Open Fields”: Early Modern Suicide and the Case of Ofelia. Journal of Early Modern Studies vol. 2, 2013, pp. 241–252.
Houston R. A. Punishing the Dead? Suicide, Lordship and Community in Britain, 1500–1830. Oxford University Press, 2010.
Langley, Eric. Narcissism and Suicide in Shakespeare and his Contemporaries. Oxford University Press, 2009.
Macdonald, Michael and Terence R. Murphy. Sleepless Souls: Suicide in Early Modern England. Clarendon Press, 1990.
Maris, Ronald W., Alan L. Berman, and Morton M. Silverman. Comprehensive Textbook of Suicidology. The Guildford Press, 2000.
Reborn, Wayne A. The Crisis of the Aristocracy in Julius Caesar. Renaissance Quarterly vol. 43, no. 1, 1990, pp. 75–111.
Tronicke, Marlena. Suicide in Shakespeare: Dead Bodies That Matter. Routledge, 2018.
Weiner, Andrew D. Burdens of Guilty Minds: Rape and Suicide in Shakespeare’s Lucrece. Graven Images: A Journal of Culture, Law, and the Sacred vol. 2, 1995, pp. 48–63.
Wright, Charlotte L. The English Canon Law Relating to Suicide Victims. Ecclesiastical Law Journal vol. 19, no. 2, 2 May 2017, pp. 193–211.

Key Online Sources

Best, Michael. Suicide. Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria, 4 Jan. 2011. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/ideas/religion/suicide1.html.
Best, Michael. Suicide on Stage. Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria, 4 Jan. 2011. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/ideas/religion/suicide2.html.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. Suicide. Encyclopedia Britannica. 10 Nov. 2022. https://www.britannica.com/topic/suicide.

Prosopography

Gabrielle Beard

Gabrielle Beard was a student at Brigham Young University.

Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

Michael Best

Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on Electronic Shakespeares, and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.

Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

Orgography

LEMDO Team (LEMD1)

The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors.

University of Victoria (UVIC1)

https://www.uvic.ca/

Metadata

Authority title Early Modern Views of Suicide
Type of text Critical
Publisher University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform
Series Early Modern England Encyclopedia
Source
By Gabrielle Beard, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions
Editorial declaration This document uses Canadian English spelling
Edition Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a
Sponsor(s)

Early Modern England Encyclopedia

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.
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Document status published, peer-reviewed
Funder(s) Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Mitacs Globablink Research Internship
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