Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics

by Stephen Greenblatt

Overview

"Brilliant, beautifully organized, exceedingly readable." —Philip Roth

World-renowned Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt explores the playwright’s insight into bad (and often mad) rulers.

Examining the psyche—and psychoses—of the likes of Richard III, Macbeth, Lear, and Coriolanus, Greenblatt illuminates the ways in which William Shakespeare delved into the lust for absolute power and the disasters visited upon the societies over which these characters rule. Tyrant shows that Shakespeare’s work remains vitally relevant today, not least in its probing of the unquenchable, narcissistic appetites of demagogues and the self-destructive willingness of collaborators who indulge their appetites.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393356977
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	05/14/2019
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Stephen Greenblatt is Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. He has written extensively on English Renaissance literature and acts as general editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature and The Norton Shakespeare. He is the author of fourteen books, including The Swerve, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, and Will in the World, a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

Hometown:

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Date of Birth:

November 7, 1943

Place of Birth:

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Education:

B.A., Yale University, 1964; B.A., Cambridge University, 1966; Ph.D., Yale University, 1969

Table of Contents

1 Oblique Angles 1

2 Party Politics 24

3 Fraudulent Populism 35

4 A Matter of Character 53

5 Enablers 66

6 Tyranny Triumphant 84

7 The Instigator 96

8 Madness in Great Ones 113

9 Downfall and Resurgence 137

10 Resistible Rise 155

Coda 183

Acknowledgments 191

Notes 193

Index 197

Editorial Reviews

"Greenblatt is especially fine on the mechanisms of tyranny, its ecology, so to speak, leaving one deeply moved all over again by Shakespeare’s profound and direct understanding of what it is to be human—which includes, alas, being a tyrant."— Simon Callow New York Times Book Review

"Rarely have these blood-soaked creatures seemed so recognizably human and so contemporary."— John Lithgow

"Elegant and deftly written."— Eliot A. Cohen Washington Post

"Greenblatt shows us not only that Shakespeare’s writings can serve as a brilliant guide to the mess of our current politics but also that he—Greenblatt, that is—is perfectly well able to give us an account of them."— Los Angeles Review of Books

"Shakespeare lived five centuries ago, yet Greenblatt’s book has the feel of a series of urgent and very contemporary dispatches."— Christian Science Monitor

"Mr. Greenblatt breaks with the traditional assumption that Shakespeare must have been an uncritical admirer of monarchy. The Shakespeare that this book reveals is not only able to tell a bad king from a good but willing to raise serious doubts about monarchy as a regime."— Wall Street Journal

"An engaging study of some of the most eloquent despots on stage."— Guardian

"In Tyrant, Greenblatt demonstrates the enduring relevance of Shakespeare’s outlook as much as providing a commentary…Shakespeare’s voice rings down the ages, and, as with innumerable other human matters, we would do well to listen to it."— Independent

"[Tyrant] is valuable less for what it has to say about Shakespeare’s plays than for how it applies the wisdom it has acquired through careful study of these works to the crisis roiling American democracy."— Los Angeles Times

"Shakespeare’s fascination with the tyrannical impulse, in domestic as well as political settings, is undeniable and is acutely observed by Greenblatt. The overlap between the private and public spheres is always catastrophic, as is the tyrant’s blind, psychotic fury at resistance when pure obedience is expected, an emotion the plays release and explore compulsively."— Literary Review (UK)

From the Publisher

Slyly and wittily, [Greenblatt] analyzes political events in Shakespeare's world in terms of our own experience…Tyrant is a fine polemic, but it is considerably more than that…Illuminating scene after scene, Greenblatt is especially fine on the mechanisms of tyranny, its ecology, so to speak, leaving one deeply moved all over again by Shakespeare's profound and direct understanding of what it is to be human—which includes, alas, being a tyrant.

The New York Times Book Review - Simon Callow

2018 National Book Critics Circle Award, Short-listed