Download Free Shakespeares Political Wisdom Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Shakespeares Political Wisdom and write the review.

Shakespeare's Political Wisdom offers interpretations of five Shakespearean plays 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 were once and may sometime become, or be recognized as being, the heart and soul of politics.
Taking the classical view that the political shapes man's consciousness, Allan Bloom considers Shakespeare as a profoundly political Renaissance dramatist. He aims to recover Shakespeare's ideas and beliefs and to make his work once again a recognized source for the serious study of moral and political problems. In essays looking at Julius Caesar, Othello, and The Merchant of Venice, Bloom shows how Shakespeare presents a picture of man that does not assume privileged access for only literary criticism. With this claim, he argues that political philosophy offers a comprehensive framework within which the problems of the Shakespearean heroes can be viewed. In short, he argues that Shakespeare was an eminently political author. Also included is an essay by Harry V. Jaffa on the limits of politics in King Lear. "A very good book indeed . . . one which can be recommended to all who are interested in Shakespeare." —G. P. V. Akrigg "This series of essays reminded me of the scope and depth of Shakespeare's original vision. One is left with the impression that Shakespeare really had figured out the answers to some important questions many of us no longer even know to ask."-Peter A. Thiel, CEO, PayPal, Wall Street Journal Allan Bloom was the John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor on the Committee on Social Thought and the co-director of the John M. Olin Center for Inquiry into the Theory and Practice of Democracy at the University of Chicago. Harry V. Jaffa is professor emeritus at Claremont McKenna College and Claremont Graduate School.
Shakespeare's plays explore a staggering range of political topics, from the nature of tyranny, to the practical effects of Christianity on politics and the family, to the meaning and practice of statesmanship. From great statesmen like Burke and Lincoln to the American frontiersman sitting by his rustic fire, those wrestling with the problems of the human soul and its confrontation with a puzzling world of political peril and promise have long considered these plays a source of political wisdom. The chapters in this volume support and illuminate this connection between Shakespearean drama and politics by examining a matter of central concern in both domains: the human soul. By depicting a bewildering variety of characters as they seek happiness and self-knowledge in the context of differing political regimes, family ties, religious duties, friendships, feuds, and poetic inspirations, Shakespeare illuminates the complex interdynamics between self-rule and political governance, educating readers by compelling us to share in the struggles of and relate to the tensions felt by each character in a way that no political treatise or lecture can. The authors of this volume, drawing upon expertise in fields such as political philosophy, American government, and law, explore the Bard's dramatization of perennial questions about human nature, moral virtue, and statesmanship, demonstrating that reading his plays as works of philosophical literature enhances our understanding of political life and provides a source of advice and inspiration for the citizens and statesmen of today and tomorrow.
The essays contained in this book proceed from the common conviction that Shakespeare s poetry conveys a wisdom about politics commensurate with his artistry. Well-known thinkers discuss Shakespeare's understanding of politics, the idea of the best polity, the relationship between character and political life, and the interpenetration of poetry, politics, religion, and philosophy.
Shakespeare between Machiavelli and Hobbes explores Shakespeare’s political outlook by comparing some of the playwright’s best-known works to the works of Italian political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli and English social contract theorist Thomas Hobbes. By situating Shakespeare ‘between’ these two thinkers, the distinctly modern trajectory of the playwright’s work becomes visible. Throughout his career, Shakespeare interrogates the divine right of kings, absolute monarchy, and the metaphor of the body politic. Simultaneously he helps to lay the groundwork for modern politics through his dramatic explorations of consent, liberty, and political violence. We can thus understand Shakespeare’s corpus as a kind of eulogy: a funeral speech dedicated to outmoded and deficient theories of politics. We can also understand him as a revolutionary political thinker who, along with Machiavelli and Hobbes, reimagined the origins and ends of government. All three thinkers understood politics primarily as a response to our mortality. They depict politics as the art of managing and organizing human bodies—caring for their needs, making space for the satisfaction of desires, and protecting them from the threat of violent death. This book features new readings of Shakespeare’s plays that illuminate the playwright’s major political preoccupations and his investment in materialist politics.
This book on Shakespeare's Henriad studies the tetralogy as a work of political thought. Leon Harold Craig, author of two previous volumes on Shakespeare's political thought, argues that the four plays present Shakespeare's teaching on the problem of legitimacy, or who has the right to rule -- one of the perennial questions of political philosophy. Offering original interpretations of each of the plays, Craig discusses the demise of divine right in Richard II, political upheaval and disputed rule in Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, and the attempt to reestablish legitimacy on a new basis in Henry V. While focusing especially on the plays' various interpretive puzzles, Craig shows how the four plays constitute one narrative, culminating in the rule of England's most famous warrior king, Henry V, whose brilliant achievements were undone by ill fortune. Craig concludes with an epilogue on what might have been had Henry lived to consolidate his conquest of France and unify it with England under a single crown. Supported by a wealth of scholarship, both historical and critical, The Philosopher's English King makes a major contribution to the burgeoning scholarship on Shakespeare as a political thinker, providing further evidence for why the poet deserves to be recognized as a philosopher in his own right. Leon Harold Craig is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Alberta.
The works of William Shakespeare vividly represent for our admiration and study a pageant of souls with longing in whose wake we ceaselessly follow. Through some of his most memorable characters, Shakespeare illuminates the nature and character--as well as consequences--of our distinctively human passions and ambition, in particular our desire for and pursuit of both honor and love. The contributors to this collaborative volume (scholars in English Literature, Political Philosophy, and the Humanities) argue that Shakespeare has much to teach us about our longing for honor and love in particular, and thus about who we are, what we desire, and why. Through sustained reflection on the Shakespearean portraits of honor and love, which are the focus of the chapters in Souls With Longing, we become more keenly aware of our own humanity and come to know ourselves more profoundly. As the abiding popularity of his works aptly demonstrates, Shakespeare's unforgettable portraits of souls with longing--his representations of honor and love--continue to exert undeniable sway over our political, moral, and romantic imaginations.
Cover -- Half-title page -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Dedication -- Contents -- List of Figures -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Reclaiming Shakespearean Freedom -- 2 Shakespeare Means Freedom -- 3 'Freetown!' (Romeo and Juliet) -- 4 Freetown-upon-Avon -- 5 Freetown-am-Main -- 6 Free Artists of Their Own Selves! -- 7 Freetown Philosopher -- 8 Against Shakespearean Freedom -- 9 The Freedom of Complete Being -- Notes -- Index
The four last plays of Shakespeare’s First Folio—Cymbeline, The Tempest, Henry VIII, and The Winter’s Tale—provide underappreciated resources for political thought and reflection. Political Wisdom in Late Shakespeare: A Way Out of the Wreck examines the ruling communities in each of these plays, exploring what virtues are dramatized as necessary in a courtier’s fulfillment of his or her political obligations. By lending courtly virtues their close attention, Shakespearean audiences can better appreciate how much a given court has been reformed or could be further reformed in the future. Indeed, these four late plays prove remarkably united in their presentation of five virtues—patience, piety, fidelity, clemency, and diligence—which consistently appear desirable for rulers to have and regimes to encourage. Moreover, the visions of tyranny offered in these plays remind readers how much is at stake should these courtly virtues decay or collapse. Their presence or absence signals whether any political community will, to borrow the language of Henry VIII, chart for themselves “a way out of the wreck.”
Based on the Children of Divorce Project, a landmark study of sixty families during the first five years after divorce, this enlightening and humane modern classic altered the conventional wisdom on the short- and long-term effects of family dissolution.