Worldly Shakespeare

'What I love most about Worldly Shakespeare is its own deep worldliness. Wilson is equally at home with the "critical violence" of Shakespearean drama, twentieth-century German political theory, and contemporary global crises around religion and terror. Wilson's philosophical investigations are enlivened with genuine wit, real ardour and an astounding intimacy with Shakespeare's plays.' Julia Reinhard Lupton, The University of California, Irvine 'This book is an outstanding piece of Shakespearean scholarship, mastering a staggering amount of dramatic and critical material combined with bold intellectual and speculative powers. Highly relevant to contemporary questions, such as globalisation, the ethics of toleration and the philosophy of multicultural societies, Worldly Shakespeare lets the old plays speak anew to present-day readers and thinkers.' Tobias Döring, LMU München A powerful new study of the plays in light of current debates about globalisation, free speech, and toleration What was Shakespeare thinking when the players named their 'wide and universal theatre' the Globe? In Worldly Shakespeare: The Theatre of Our Good Will, Richard Wilson situates this playacting in the context of current concerns about the difference between globalization and true 'mondialization'. Shakespeare was 'thinking the world' as a planetary drama without catharsis, Wilson suggests, and anticipating agonistic philosophers like Jacques Rancière and Slavoj Zizek, who insist the essence of democracy is dissent, and 'the presence of two worlds in one'. Shakespeare's worldliness consists of the right to give, but not to take offence, Worldly Shakespeare argues. So his plays stage the qualified toleration pictured by Velázquez, when he painted Catholics and Protestants embracing amidst their weapons. Living out his scenario of the guest who destroys the host, by welcoming the religious fanatic, paranoid queen, veiled woman, and even terrorist into his play-world, Wilson concludes, Shakespeare provides a pretext for our own globalized communities in times of Facebook and fatwa, as we also come to depend on the right to offend, 'with our good will'. Richard Wilson is Sir Peter Hall Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Kingston University, London, and the author of Free Will: Art and power on Shakespeare's stage; Shakespeare in French Theory: King of Shadows; Secret Shakespeare: Essays on theatre, religion and resistance; and Will Power: Studies in Shakespearean authority. He was described by the critic A.D, Nuttall as 'perhaps the most brilliant of the Shakespearean historicists'.