| Summary: |
"Shakespeare's Political Wisdom" offers careful interpretations of five Shakespearean plays -- "Julius Caesar, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear, and The Tempest" --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, for Shakespeare, form the heart and soul of politics: Who should rule, and what is justice? Burns provides an original reading of the plays through the lens of political philosophy rather than Theatre or Renaissance Studies. Shakespeare's wisdom found in these five plays, Burns concludes, provides a deeply relevant critique of our contemporary civic culture. |