Shakespearean Genealogies of Power: A Whispering of Nothing in Hamlet, Richard II, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, and The Winters Ta [Hardcover]

1. Perpetuum Mobile: Shakespeares Perpetual Renaissance  2. The Ghost of History: Hamlets Politics of Paternity  3. Lethes Wharf: Wild Justice, the Purgatorial Supplement  4. Richard II, Bracton, and the End of Political Theology  5. The Death of a Shifter: Jupiterian History in Julius Caesar  6. The Future of Violence: Macbeth and Machiavelli  7. The Whispering of Nothing: The Winters Tale  8. But Mercy is Above: Shylocks Pun of a Pound  9. Habeas Corpus: The Laws Desire to Have the Body

Shakespearean Genealogies of Power: A Whispering of Nothing addresses the new perspective on normativity opened up by Shakespeares stage, as a visible space between the spheres of politics and law.

Brilliant, intense, and original. Like Benjamin, whose book on German baroque drama is comparably difficult, Haverkamp rewards every bit of concentration and labor. Just when it seemed impossible to write about Hamlet in a fresh and exciting way, Haverkamp comes along and shows how it can be done. His work will have a serious impact on anyone interested in the application of theory to Shakespeare.

Stephen Greenblatt, Harvard University

Anselm Haverkamp writes in, but also to, the European Shakespeare tradition, a stage shared by Hegel, Freud and Benjamin as well as Beckett, Brecht and M?ller His readings pursue the emergence and mutation of Shakespeares futures in response to the refiguring pressures of theatrical performance, philosophical engagement, avant-garde adaptation, and epochal catastrophe. This study of Shakespeares ongoing effects is the most stunning account to date of what it means for Shakespeare to be our contemporary  and why we should care.

Julia Reinhard Lupton, University of l“I