Review of TYRANT
Shakespeare and politics and Stephen Greenblatt in a short brilliant tutorial of a book ...
I really do not like the Contemporary Affairs sections of bookstores. Too often they are just printed versions of on-line or network loudmouths. There are the topical issues of the day elongated into redundant and myopic books designed for the top shelves of airport book stalls. The shelves will improve with the latest respectable “takes” on our world led by the likes of Woodward. There will even be books from the tip of the pundit pyramid by the likes of George Packer or Fareed Zakaria. Still, I will likely pass. Too often the information is not all that new and even when it is, what is most affected is my blood pressure (see Option #1 in thought experiment newsletter). Especially in these fraught times, I look for contemporary commentary indirectly – through history or literature. It is in the latter that Stephen Greenblatt’s succinct and utterly accessible Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics is just what the doctor ordered.
If Greenblatt, a world-renowned Shakespeare scholar and professor extraordinaire, wrote a book about the evolution of the menu, I would read it. I read his landmark book on many of the most famous of Shakespeare’s plays, Will in the World, one summer in London and it remains one of the great reads of my life. Students flock to his classes for a reason. I read that he wrote Tyrant in response to the emergence of Trump and it is certainly a bone chilling warning. Apparently, the Bard was obsessed with tyranny both big and small. Writing plays was a dangerous business during the intrigue filled years of Elizabeth’s long reign. In Tyrant, Greenblatt sweeps you through most of the history plays and tragedies, each providing a unique glimpse into the ubiquitous and apparently irresistable role of tyranny in our political lives and, most importantly, in our unconscious minds. This is the classroom experience at its best.
Tyrant
Shakespeare on Politics
By Stephen Greenblatt
2019 224 page
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