Dustin A. Gish – författare

The works of William Shakespeare vividly represent for our admiration and study a pageant of souls with longing in whose wake we ceaselessly follow. Through some of his most memorable characters, Shakespeare illuminates the nature and character—as well as consequences—of our distinctively human passions and ambition, in particular our desire for and pursuit of both honor and love. The contributors to this collaborative volume (scholars in English Literature, Political Philosophy, and the Humanities) argue that Shakespeare has much to teach us about our longing for honor and love in particular, and thus about who we are, what we desire, and why. Through sustained reflection on the Shakespearean portraits of honor and love, which are the focus of the chapters in Souls With Longing, we become more keenly aware of our own humanity and come to know ourselves more profoundly. As the abiding popularity of his works aptly demonstrates, Shakespeare’s unforgettable portraits of souls with longing—his representations of honor and love—continue to exert undeniable sway over our political, moral, and romantic imaginations.

Metaphors animate Shakespeare’s corpus, and one of the most prominent is the image of the body. Sketched out in the eternal lines of his plays and poetry, and often drawn in exquisite detail, variations on the body metaphor abound in the works of Shakespeare. Attention to the political dimensions of this metaphor in Shakespeare and the Body Politic permits readers to examine the sentiments of romantic love and family life, the enjoyment of peace, prosperity and justice, and the spirited pursuit of honor and glory as they inevitably emerge within the social, moral, and religious limits of particular political communities. The lessons to be learned from such an examination are both timely and timeless. For the tensions between the desires and pursuits of individuals and the health of the community forge the sinews of every body politic, regardless of the form it may take or even where and when one might encounter it. In his plays and poetry Shakespeare illuminates these tensions within the body politic, which itself constitutes the framework for a flourishing community of human beings and citizens—from the ancient city-states of Greece and Rome to the Christian cities and kingdoms of early modern Europe. The contributors to this volume attend to the political context and role of political actors within the diverse works of Shakespeare that they explore. Their arguments thus exhibit together Shakespeare’s political thought. By examining his plays and poetry with the seriousness they deserve, Shakespeare’s audiences and readers not only discover an education in human and political virtue, but also find themselves written into his lines. Shakespeare’s body of work is indeed politic, and the whole that it forms incorporates us all.

Both reason and religion have been acknowledged by scholars to have had a profound impacton the foundation and formation of the American regime. But the significance, pervasiveness,and depth of that impact have also been disputed. While many have approached the Americanfounding period with an interest in the influence of Enlightenment reason or Biblical religion,they have often assumed such influences to be exclusive, irreconcilable, or contradictory. Fewscholarly works have sought to study the mutual influence of reason and religion as intertwinedstrands shaping the American historical and political experience at its founding. The purpose ofthe chapters in this volume, authored by a distinguished group of scholars in political science,intellectual history, literature, and philosophy, is to examine how this mutual influence wasmade manifest in the American Founding—especially in the writings, speeches, and thought ofcritical figures (Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson,James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Charles Carroll), and in later works by key interpreters ofthe American Founding (Alexis de Tocqueville and Abraham Lincoln).Taken as a whole, then, this volume does not attempt to explain away the potential oppositionbetween religion and reason in the American mind of the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth- centuries, but instead argues that there is a uniquely American perspective and political thoughtthat emerges from this tension. The chapters gathered here, individually and collectively, seekto illuminate the animating affect of this tension on the political rhetoric, thought, and historyof the early American period. By taking seriously and exploring the mutual influence of thesetwo themes in creative tension, rather than seeing them as diametrically opposed or as mutuallyexclusive, this volume thus reveals how the pervasiveness and resonance of Biblical narrativesand religion supported and infused Enlightened political discourse and action at the Founding,thereby articulating the complementarity of reason and religion during this critical period.