Shakespeare's Political Wisdom

by Burns, Timothy W.

• ISBN13: 9781137320858
• ISBN10: 1137320850
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-04-04
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Shakespeare's Political Wisdom offers careful interpretations of five Shakespearean plays - Julius Caesar, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear, and The Tempest - with a view to the enduring guidance those plays can provide to human, political life. The plays have been chosen for their relentless attention to the questions that, for Shakespeare, form the heart and soul of politics: Who should rule, and what is justice? Burns provides an original reading of the plays through the lens of political philosophy rather than Theatre or Renaissance Studies. Shakespeare's wisdom found in these five plays, Burns concludes, provides a deeply relevant critique of our contemporary civic culture.

Author Biography

Timothy Burns is Professor of Government at Skidmore College, USA. He is co-author (with Thomas L. Pangle) of Introduction To Political Philosophy, editor of After History? Francis Fukuyama and his Critics, and editor of Recovering Reason: Essays in Honor of Thomas L. Pangle. He is translator of Marcellinus' 'Life of Thucydides,' and author of articles on Homer, Thucydides, Aristophanes, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Hobbes, Shakespeare, Strauss, Fukuyama, Putnam, Chesterton, and modern liberal republican theory.

Table of Contents

1. Julius Caesar: The Problem of Classical Republicanism
2. Macbeth: Ambition Driven Into Darkness
3. The Merchant of Venice: Roman Virtue in a Christian Commercial Republic
4. King Lear: The Question of Divine Justice
5. The Tempest: A Philosopher-Poet Educating Citizens