Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics [Paperback]

Brilliant, beautifully organized, exceedingly readable. Philip Roth Greenblatt is especially fine on the mechanisms of tyranny, its ecology, so to speak, leaving one deeply moved all over again by Shakespeares profound and direct understanding of what it is to be humanwhich includes, alas, being a tyrant. Rarely have these blood-soaked creatures seemed so recognizably human and so contemporary. Elegant and deftly written. Greenblatt shows us not only that Shakespeares writings can serve as a brilliant guide to the mess of our current politics but also that heGreenblatt, that isis perfectly well able to give us an account of them. Shakespeare lived five centuries ago, yet Greenblatts book has the feel of a series of urgent and very contemporary dispatches. Mr. Greenblatt breaks with the traditional assumption that Shakespeare must have been an uncritical admirer of monarchy. The Shakespeare that this book reveals is not only able to tell a bad king from a good but willing to raise serious doubts about monarchy as a regime. An engaging study of some of the most eloquent despots on stage. In [ Shakespeares fascination with the tyrannical impulse, in domestic as well as political settings, is undeniable and is acutely observed by Greenblatt. The overlap between the private and public spheres is always catastrophic, as is the tyrants blind, psychotic fury at resistance when pure obedience is expected, an emotion the plays release and explore compulsively.