Shakespeare in the Present: Political Lessons under Biden (Routledge Focus on Literature) - Softcover

Goldfarb Styrt, Philip

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1032363282 ISBN 13: 9781032363288

Publisher: Routledge, 2024

Synopsis

Shakespeare in the Present: Political Lessons under Biden is the first case study in applying the lessons of Shakespeare’s plays to post-Trump America. It looks at American politics through the lens of Shakespeare, not simply equating figures in the contemporary world to Shakespearean characters, but showing how the broader conditions of Shakespeare’s imagined worlds reflect and inform our own. Clearly written, in a direct and engaging style, it shows that reading Shakespeare with our contemporary Washington in mind can enrich our understanding of both his works and our world. Shakespeare wrote for his own time, but we always read him in our present. As such, the way we read him now is always affected by our own understanding of our own political world. This book provides quick critical analyses of Shakespeare’s plays and contemporary American politics while serving as an introduction for undergraduates and general readers to this kind of topical, presentist criticism of Shakespeare.

About this title

About the Author

Philip Goldfarb Styrt is an Assistant Professor of English at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, IA. He received his Ph.D. in English from the University of Chicago in 2015, and his first book, Shakespeare’s Political Imagination: The Historicism of Setting was published in 2021 by Arden Shakespeare.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1032363282
• ISBN 13: 9781032363288
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 98