Overview
Winner of 2014 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award, 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.