Shakespeare’s Exiles

Richard van Oort received his PhD from the University of California, Irvine in 2002, and was visiting assistant professor and postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia until 2007, when he joined the English department at the University of Victoria. He is the author of Shakespeare’s Big Men: Tragedy and the Problem of Resentment (University of Toronto Press, 2016) and Shakespeare’s Mad Men: A Crisis of Authority (Stanford University Press, 2022).

“The insightful analysis of Timon of Athens that opens Shakespeare’s Exiles provides the point of departure for an amazingly lucid unraveling of the complex theatricality of Shakespeare’s farewell work, The Tempest, in the finest demonstration yet of van Oort’s mastery of what we must call ‘theatrical anthropology.’”--Eric Gans, University of California, Los Angeles“Shakespeare’s Exiles treats Timon of Athens and The Tempest as ‘ethical discovery procedures.’ In contrast to the ‘big men’ of Shakespeare’s earlier plays, Timon and Prospero achieve an uncanny self-realization by marginalizing themselves. Van Oort’s original and compelling readings unmask the power relations of these plays without dispelling their attraction as theatrical illusions.”--Blair Hoxby, Stanford University"Shakespeare’s Exiles completes Van Oort’s ambitious trilogy on Shakespeare, one of the most fascinating projects in literary studies today. Drawing on the generative anthropology of Eric Gans, Van Oort sees in Shakespeare’s career a sustained and evolving reflection on the place of sacrificial violence in human culture, on the formation and dissolution of political authority and the possibility of recovering from personal and social catastrophe. Van Oort lets everything ride on the power of his interpretation of Shakespeare as an interpreter of culture, and in doing so makes an exemplary case for placing literary studies at the core of humanistic inquiry."- Paul A. Kottman, Professor of Comparative Literature at the New School for Social Research

• 1 Introduction2 The Hunger Artist of Athens 3 The Last Temptation of Prospero 4 Epilogue: Atonement