Description
Book SynopsisShakespeare lived in a world of absolutes - the absolute authority claimed for God over the world, for the holy scriptures over the faithful, monarchs over subjects, fathers over wives and children, men over women. This book shows that Shakespeare was averse to such absolute claims and constantly probed the possibility of freedom from them.
Trade Review"Stephen Greenblatt is one of America's most elegant and inventive literary critics. He writes with panache as he spins intriguing yarns from surprising materials. He has a gift as a reader of Shakespeare for noticing details that others have tended to overlook and using them as a prism to refract the plays in new ways." (New Statesman) "It is good, at a time when there is danger of seeing Shakespeare too exclusively as an entertainer, to find an acknowledgement of the intellectual powers that pervade his work, and Greenblatt brings his formidable critical expertise to bear on the writings in this deeply thoughtful study." (Times Literary Supplement) "In this short collection of essays, Stephen Greenblatt's analysis of both Shakespeare and the Renaissance is informative and often original. He argues that Shakespeare's genius lay in embracing and subverting the norms of his age.... Yet, the book's real lesson is Shakespeare's awareness of the human condition in all its complexity." (Financial Times)"
