Worldly Shakespeare

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’.

• As Mice by Lions: Political Theology and Measure Introduction; No Offence in the World; 1. A Globe of Sinful Continents: Shakespeare Thinks the World; 2. Too Long For A Play: Shakespeare and the Wars of Religion; 3. Shakespeare in Hate: Performing the Virgin Queen; 4. No Enemy But Winter: Shakespeare’s Rogue State; 5. Fools of Time: Shakespeare and the Martyrs; 6. Veiling an Indian Beauty: Shakespeare and the Hijab; 7. When Golden Time Convents: Shakespeare and the Shah; 8. Like An Olympian Wrestling: Shakespeare’s Olympic Game; 9. For Measure; 10. Incensing Relics: All’s Well That Ends Well in Shakespeare’s Spain; Epilogue: Flower Power in Bohemia.

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.