Shakespeare Now! – serie

"Shakespeare Now!" is a series of short books of truly vital literary scholarship, each with its own distinctive form. "Shakespeare Now!" recaptures the excitement of Shakespeare; it doesn't assume we know him already, or that we know the best methods for approaching his plays. "Shakespeare Now!" is a new generation of critics, unafraid of risk, on a series of intellectual adventures. Above all - it is a new Shakespeare, freshly present in each volume. Shakespearean thinking is always dynamic: thinking that happens in the living moment of its performance, in quickly passing process. This book offers a model of human mentality that can be shown through the dense immediacy of dramatic thinking, as embodied above all in Shakespeare's working method. "Shakespeare Thinking" discusses the positioning of Shakespeare as the paradigm of fully human mental creativity from the Romantics to the latest neurological experiments which show that Shakespeare can reveal new understandings of the hard-wiring of the human brain, and the sheer sudden electricity of its synaptic development.

"Shakespeare Now!" is a series of short books of truly vital literary scholarship, each with its own distinctive form. "Shakespeare Now!" recaptures the excitement of Shakespeare; it doesn't assume we know him already, or that we know the best methods for approaching his plays. "Shakespeare Now!" is a new generation of critics, unafraid of risk, on a series of intellectual adventures. Above all - it is a new Shakespeare, freshly present in each volume. Shakespearean thinking is always dynamic: thinking that happens in the living moment of its performance, in quickly passing process. This book offers a model of human mentality that can be shown through the dense immediacy of dramatic thinking, as embodied above all in Shakespeare's working method. "Shakespeare Thinking" discusses the positioning of Shakespeare as the paradigm of fully human mental creativity from the Romantics to the latest neurological experiments which show that Shakespeare can reveal new understandings of the hard-wiring of the human brain, and the sheer sudden electricity of its synaptic development.

The contents include a chapter on Conversion and the following. In Act Two, we have, "Words Before Blows" by Sammie Byron, Brutus; "Most Noble Brother, You Have Done Me Wrong" by DeMond Bush, Mark Antony; and, "Have You Not Love Enough to Bear with Me?" by Ron Brown, Cassius. In Intermission, we have Othello: Unplugged at Luther Luckett Correctional Complex. In Act Three, we have The Luckett Symposium on Shakespeare and Race: Titus Andronicus, Merchant of Venice, and Othello; "George Bush Doesn't Care about Black People": Agnes Wilcox's Julius Caesar at Northeast Correctional Center. In Act Four, we have "Romans, Countrymen, Lovers!" The Shakespeare Behind Bars Tour at the Kentucky Correctional Institute for Women; "Unsex Me Here": Playing the Lady at Luckett; and, Rapshrew: Jean Trounstine and the Framingham Women's Prison. In Act Five, we have: A Visit with Warden Larry Chandler; Desdemona Speaks: Mike Smith on the Outside; and, Shakespeare in Solitary: "To Revenge or to Forgive?": Laura Bates' Hamlet and Othello at the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility. The contents also include an epilogue.

The contents include a chapter on Conversion and the following. In Act Two, we have, "Words Before Blows" by Sammie Byron, Brutus; "Most Noble Brother, You Have Done Me Wrong" by DeMond Bush, Mark Antony; and, "Have You Not Love Enough to Bear with Me?" by Ron Brown, Cassius. In Intermission, we have Othello: Unplugged at Luther Luckett Correctional Complex. In Act Three, we have The Luckett Symposium on Shakespeare and Race: Titus Andronicus, Merchant of Venice, and Othello; "George Bush Doesn't Care about Black People": Agnes Wilcox's Julius Caesar at Northeast Correctional Center. In Act Four, we have "Romans, Countrymen, Lovers!" The Shakespeare Behind Bars Tour at the Kentucky Correctional Institute for Women; "Unsex Me Here": Playing the Lady at Luckett; and, Rapshrew: Jean Trounstine and the Framingham Women's Prison. In Act Five, we have: A Visit with Warden Larry Chandler; Desdemona Speaks: Mike Smith on the Outside; and, Shakespeare in Solitary: "To Revenge or to Forgive?": Laura Bates' Hamlet and Othello at the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility. The contents also include an epilogue.

Recent work in Shakespeare studies has brought to the forefront a variety of ways in which the collaborative nature of Shakespearean drama can be investigated: collaborative performance (Shakespeare and his fellow actors); collaborative writing (Shakespeare and his co-authors); collaborative textual production (Shakespeare and his transcribers and printers). What this leaves unaccounted for, is the form of collaboration that affects more than any other our modern reading experience of Shakespeare's plays: what we read as Shakespeare now always comes to us in the form of a collaborative enterprise - and is decisively shaped by the nature of the collaboration - between Shakespeare and his modern editors.Contrary to much recent criticism, this book suggests that modern textual mediators have a positive rather than negative role: they are not simply 'pimps of discourse' or cultural tyrants whose oppressive interventions we need to 'unedit' but collaborators who can decisively shape and enable our response to Shakespeare's plays.Erne argues that any reader of Shakespeare, scholar, student, or general reader, approaches Shakespeare through modern editions that have an endlessly complicated and fascinating relationship to what Shakespeare may actually have intended and written, that modern editors determine what that relationship is, and that it is generally a very good thing that they do so."Shakespeare Now!" is a series of short books that engage imaginatively and often provocatively with the possibilities of Shakespeare's plays. It goes back to the source - the most living language imaginable - and recaptures the excitement, audacity and surprise of Shakespeare. It will return you to the plays with opened eyes.

Recent work in Shakespeare studies has brought to the forefront a variety of ways in which the collaborative nature of Shakespearean drama can be investigated: collaborative performance (Shakespeare and his fellow actors); collaborative writing (Shakespeare and his co-authors); collaborative textual production (Shakespeare and his transcribers and printers). What this leaves unaccounted for is the form of collaboration that affects more than any other our modern reading experience of Shakespeare's plays: what we read as Shakespeare now always comes to us in the form of a collaborative enterprise - and is decisively shaped by the nature of the collaboration - between Shakespeare and his modern editors.Contrary to much recent criticism, this book suggests that modern textual mediators have a positive rather than negative role: they are not simply 'pimps of discourse' or cultural tyrants whose oppressive interventions we need to 'unedit' but collaborators who can decisively shape and enable our response to Shakespeare's plays.Erne argues that any reader of Shakespeare, scholar, student, or general reader, approaches Shakespeare through modern editions that have an endlessly complicated and fascinating relationship to what Shakespeare may actually have intended and written, that modern editors determine what that relationship is, and that it is generally a very good thing that they do so."Shakespeare Now!" is a series of short books that engage imaginatively and often provocatively with the possibilities of Shakespeare's plays. It goes back to the source - the most living language imaginable - and recaptures the excitement, audacity and surprise of Shakespeare. It will return you to the plays with opened eyes.

Hamlet's 'To be or not to be' soliloquy is quoted more often than any other passage in Shakespeare. It is arguably the most famous speech in the Western world - though few of us can remember much about it. This book carefully unpacks the individual words, phrases and sentences of Hamlet's solioquy uin order to reveal how and why it has achieved its remarkable hold on our culture. Hamlet's speech asks us to ask some of the most serious questions there are regarding knowledge and existence. In it, Shakespeare also expands the limits of the English language. Douglas Bruster therefore reads Hamlet's famous speech in 'slow motion' to highlight its material, philosophical and cultural meaning and its resonance for generations of actors, playgoers and readers. Douglas Bruster is Professor of English at The University of Texas at Austin, USA. He is the author of Drama and the Market in the Age of Shakespeare; Quoting Shakespeare; Shakespeare and the Question of Culture; and, with Robert Weimann, Prologues to Shakespeare's Theatre.

"Shakespeare Now!" is a series of short books of truly vital literary scholarship, each with its own distinctive form. "Shakespeare Now!" recaptures the excitement of Shakespeare; it doesn't assume we know him already, or that we know the best methods for approaching his plays. "Shakespeare Now!" is a new generation of critics, unafraid of risk, on a series of intellectual adventures. Above all - it is a new Shakespeare, freshly present in each volume. Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy is quoted more often than almost any other passage in Shakespeare. Parodies and advertisements show us that invoking even its first two words is enough to imply the rest of the speech - though few of us can recall much about it. For we like to think we know this speech, even as we like to think we know our Shakespeare. "To Be or Not to Be" takes this most famous speech and unpacks it's meaning to reveal the questions and problems it raises. Hamlet's speech asks us to ask serious questions about knowledge and existence. The book asks what close attention to Shakespeare's words can tell us about what we don't and perhaps can't know.If this speech concerns what isn't knowable, what else is it about? Is it or is it not about suicide? Do the King and Polonius overhear? If so, does Hamlet know or care? What must we bring to it, as readers? What about as audience members: to what do we need to pay attention? This book reads the individual words, phrases and sentences of Hamlet's famous speech in 'slow motion' to highlight its material, philosophical and cultural meaning and its resonance for generations of actors, playgoers and readers.

"Shakespeare Now!" is a series of short books of truly vital literary scholarship, each with its own distinctive form. "Shakespeare Now!" recaptures the excitement of Shakespeare; it doesn't assume we know him already, or that we know the best methods for approaching his plays. "Shakespeare Now!" is a new generation of critics, unafraid of risk, on a series of intellectual adventures. Above all - it is a new Shakespeare, freshly present in each volume. In "Godless Shakespeare", Mallin argues that there is a profound absence of, or hostility to, God in Shakespeare's plays. It is clear that Shakespeare engaged with and deployed much of his culture's broadly religious interests: his language is shot through with biblical quotations, priestly sermonizing, Christian imagery and miracle-play style allegory. However, he claims that a counter-discourse also emerges in the works, arguing against God, or the idea of God. This is a polemical account of the absence of God and of belief in the plays, and of how this absence functions in theatrical moments of crux and crisis.Following Dante's three part structure for the "Divine Comedy" - the first part (Inferno) represents expressions of religious faith in Shakespeare's plays, the second (Purgatorio) sets out more sceptical positions, and the last (Paradiso) articulations of godlessness. The discussion focuses on the moral and spiritual dilemmas of major characters, developing the often subtle transitions between belief, scepticism and atheism and suggesting that there is a liberating potential in unbelief.

"Shakespeare Now!" is a series of short books of truly vital literary scholarship, each with its own distinctive form. "Shakespeare Now!" recaptures the excitement of Shakespeare; it doesn't assume we know him already, or that we know the best methods for approaching his plays. "Shakespeare Now!" is a new generation of critics, unafraid of risk, on a series of intellectual adventures. Above all - it is a new Shakespeare, freshly present in each volume. In "Godless Shakespeare", Mallin argues that there is a profound absence of, or hostility to, God in Shakespeare's plays. It is clear that Shakespeare engaged with and deployed much of his culture's broadly religious interests: his language is shot through with biblical quotations, priestly sermonizing, Christian imagery and miracle-play style allegory. However, he claims that a counter-discourse also emerges in the works, arguing against God, or the idea of God. This is a polemical account of the absence of God and of belief in the plays, and of how this absence functions in theatrical moments of crux and crisis.Following Dante's three part structure for the "Divine Comedy" - the first part (Inferno) represents expressions of religious faith in Shakespeare's plays, the second (Purgatorio) sets out more sceptical positions, and the last (Paradiso) articulations of godlessness. The discussion focuses on the moral and spiritual dilemmas of major characters, developing the often subtle transitions between belief, scepticism and atheism and suggesting that there is a liberating potential in unbelief.

This title offers a fresh approach to the plays that suggests they can be seen as metaphysical 'experiments' conducted in the medium of drama.Metaphysics is usually associated with that part of the philosophical tradition which asks about 'last things', questions such as: How many substances are there in the world? Which is more fundamental, quantity or quality? Are events prior to things, or do they happen to those things? While he wasn't a philosopher, Shakespeare was obviously interested in 'ultimates' of this sort. Instead of probing these issues with argument, however, he did so with plays. "Shakespearean Metaphysics" argues for Shakespeare's inclusion within a metaphysical tradition that opposes empiricism and Cartesian dualism.Through close readings of three major plays - "The Tempest", "King Lear" and "Twelfth Night" - Witmore proposes that Shakespeare's manner of depicting life on stage itself constitutes an 'answer' to metaphysical questions raised by later thinkers such as Spinoza, Bergson, and Whitehead.Each of these readings shifts the interpretative frame around the plays in radical ways; taken together they show the limits of our understanding of theatrical play as an 'illusion' generated by the physical circumstances of production."Shakespeare Now!" is a series of short books that engage imaginatively and often provocatively with the possibilities of Shakespeare's plays. It goes back to the source - the most living language imaginable - and recaptures the excitement, audacity and surprise of Shakespeare. It will return you to the plays with opened eyes.

Metaphysics is usually associated with that part of the philosophical tradition which asks about 'last things', questions such as: How many substances are there in the world? Which is more fundamental, quantity or quality? Are events prior to things, or do they happen to those things? While he wasn't a philosopher, Shakespeare was obviously interested in 'ultimates' of this sort. Instead of probing these issues with argument, however, he did so with plays. Shakespearean Metaphysics argues for Shakespeare's inclusion within a metaphysical tradition that opposes empiricism and Cartesian dualism. Through close readings of three major plays - The Tempest, King Lear and Twelfth Night - Witmore proposes that Shakespeare's manner of depicting life on stage itself constitutes an 'answer' to metaphysical questions raised by later thinkers as Spinoza, Bergson, and Whitehead. Each of these readings shifts the interpretative frame around the plays in radical ways; taken together they show the limits of our understanding of theatrical play as an 'illusion' generated by the physical circumstances of production.

What does it mean to make life? This book focuses on one of the key questions for culture and science in both Shakespeare's time and our own. Shakespeare wrote "A Midsummer Night's Dream" during a period when the "new science" had begun to unsettle the foundations of knowledge about the natural world. Through close analysis of the play and reflection on modern genetic engineering, Turner examines developments in early modern culture as it sought to come to terms with the new forces of magic, astrology, alchemy and mechanics, fields of knowledge that preoccupied the most adventurous intellects of Shakespeare's period and that promised limitless power over nature.Shakespeare's writing sheds light on current developments in science, ethics, law, and religion in contemporary culture. This book reveals the richness and peculiarity of early scientific thought in Shakespeare's time and shows how the questions he poses remain fundamental as the nature of "life" has become one of the most pressing political, ethical, and philosophical problems for society today."Shakespeare Now!" is a series of short books that engage imaginatively and often provocatively with the possibilities of Shakespeare's plays.It goes back to the source - the most living language imaginable - and recaptures the excitement, audacity and surprise of Shakespeare. It will return you to the plays with opened eyes.

What does it mean to make life? This book focuses on one of the key questions for culture and science in both Shakespeare's time and our own. Shakespeare wrote "A Midsummer Night's Dream" during a period when the "new science" had begun to unsettle the foundations of knowledge about the natural world. Through close analysis of the play and reflection on modern genetic engineering, Turner examines developments in early modern culture as it sought to come to terms with the new forces of magic, astrology, alchemy and mechanics, fields of knowledge that preoccupied the most adventurous intellects of Shakespeare's period and that promised limitless power over nature. Shakespeare's writing sheds light on current developments in science, ethics, law, and religion in contemporary culture.This book reveals the richness and peculiarity of early scientific thought in Shakespeare's time and shows how the questions he poses remain fundamental as the nature of "life" has become one of the most pressing political, ethical, and philosophical problems for society today. "Shakespeare Now!" is a series of short books that engage imaginatively and often provocatively with the possibilities of Shakespeare's plays.It goes back to the source - the most living language imaginable - and recaptures the excitement, audacity and surprise of Shakespeare. It will return you to the plays with opened eyes.

Through close readings of a wide range of plays and poems, Kiernan Ryan's compelling polemic sets out to reclaim the idea of Shakespeare's timeless universality from reactionary and radical critics alike. Its argument is driven throughout by the belief that at this moment in history the need to recognise and activate the revolutionary potential of Shakespeare's drama is more urgent than ever.The volume has been shortlisted for the European Society for the Study of English 2016 Prize for the best critical study in the field of Literatures in the English Language.

Schools and universities are fast becoming managerial ''courts'' of learning in which educators and students are system creatures busily fulfilling system protocols. Any teacher or academic yearning for fresh and authentic approaches to their discipline must first find ways to imagine possibilities beyond the system''s limits. This book sounds the depths of the problem in respect to Literary Studies and proposes strategies for effecting voluntary ''exile'' from court in pursuit of more imaginative approaches to the teaching and learning of Shakespeare and Marlowe.

Schools and universities are fast becoming managerial ‘courts’ of learning in which educators and students are system creatures busily fulfilling system protocols. Any teacher or academic yearning for fresh and authentic approaches to their discipline must first find ways to imagine possibilities beyond the system’s limits. This book sounds the depths of the problem in respect to Literary Studies and proposes strategies for effecting voluntary ‘exile’ from court in pursuit of more imaginative approaches to the teaching and learning of Shakespeare and Marlowe.

Schools and universities are fast becoming managerial ''courts'' of learning in which educators and students are system creatures busily fulfilling system protocols. Any teacher or academic yearning for fresh and authentic approaches to their discipline must first find ways to imagine possibilities beyond the system''s limits. This book sounds the depths of the problem in respect to Literary Studies and proposes strategies for effecting voluntary ''exile'' from court in pursuit of more imaginative approaches to the teaching and learning of Shakespeare and Marlowe.

What does it mean to make life? This book focuses on one of the key questions for culture and science in both Shakespeare's time and our own. Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream during a period when the 'new science' had begun to unsettle the foundations of knowledge about the natural world. Through close analysis of the play and reflection on modern genetic engineering, Turner examines developments in early modern culture as it sought to come to terms with the new forces of magic, astrology, alchemy and mechanics - fields of knowledge that preoccupied the most adventurous intellects of Shakespeare's period and that promised limitless power over nature. Shakespeare's writing sheds light on current developments in science, ethics, law, and religion in contemporary culture. This book reveals the richness and peculiarity of early scientific thought in Shakespeare's time and shows how the questions he poses remain fundamental as the nature of 'life' has become one of the most pressing political, ethical, and philosophical problems for society today.

Godless Shakespeare is the first book to discuss Shakespeare''s plays from an atheist perspective.   Although it is clear that Shakespeare engaged with and deployed much of his culture''s broadly religious interests - his language is shot through with biblical quotations, priestly sermonizing and Christian imagery - Mallin argues that there is a profound absence of or hostility to God in his plays.Following Dante''s three part structure for The Divine Comedy - Hell represents expressions of religious faith in Shakespeare''s plays, Purgatory sets out more sceptical positions, and Heaven shows articulations of godlessness - Mallin traces a spiritual ascent from the unthinkingly devout to the atheistically spiritual. This polemical, vigorous account focuses on the moral and spiritual dilemmas of major characters, developing the often subtle transitions between belief, scepticism and atheism. Finally, Godless Shakespeare argues for the liberating potential of unbelief.

Hamlet's Dreams brings together the Robben Island Prison of Nelson Mandela and the prison that is Denmark for Shakespeare's Hamlet. David Shalkwyk uses the circulation of the so-called 'Robben Island Shakespeare', a copy of the Alexander edition of the Complete Works that was secretly circulated, annotated and signed by a group of Robben Island political prisoner in the 1970s (including Nelson Mandela), to examine the representation and experience of imprisonment in South African prison memoirs and Shakespeare's Hamlet. The book looks at the ways in which oppressive spaces or circumstances restrict the ways in which personal identity can be formed or formulated in relation to others. The 'bad dreams' that keep Hamlet from considering himself the 'king of infinite space' are, it argues, the need for other people that becomes especially evident in situations of real or psychological imprisonment.

Recent work in Shakespeare studies has brought to the forefront a variety of ways in which the collaborative nature of Shakespearean drama can be investigated: collaborative performance (Shakespeare and his fellow actors); collaborative writing (Shakespeare and his co-authors); collaborative textual production (Shakespeare and his transcribers and printers). What this leaves unaccounted for is the form of collaboration that affects more than any other our modern reading experience of Shakespeare''s plays: what we read as Shakespeare now always comes to us in the form of a collaborative enterprise - and is decisively shaped by the nature of the collaboration - between Shakespeare and his modern editors. Contrary to much recent criticism, this book suggests that modern textual mediators have a positive rather than negative role: they are not simply ''pimps of discourse'' or cultural tyrants whose oppressive interventions we need to ''unedit'' but collaborators who can decisively shape and enable our response to Shakespeare''s plays. Erne argues that any reader of Shakespeare, scholar, student, or general reader, approaches Shakespeare through modern editions that have an endlessly complicated and fascinating relationship to what Shakespeare may actually have intended and written, that modern editors determine what that relationship is, and that it is generally a very good thing that they do so.

This is the personal form of criticism, focusing on the wide-ranging issues of identity and history raised by "King Lear" by exploring Australians' engagements with the play. Outlaws, irreverent humorists, political underdogs, authoritarians...these are the images of Australians as revealed through the lens of "King Lear". For a very long time there prevailed a generalized view of Australia as a remote outpost ambiguously related to colonial narratives of pioneering hardship. However, starting in the 1970s, a flowering of Australian artefacts (particularly cinema), as well as the financial affordability of travel to Australia, has led to a growing curiosity about the country and a wish to understand its 'narrative'. As much of this narrative comes of people creating culture and society where no laws were believed to have existed, the idea of authority is fundamental, and "King Lear" emerges in an astonishing variety of contexts as we consider the play as a filter for the complexity of Australian social practices."The King and I" moves from 1976 through to 2009, taking moments in a personal history to examine, through the lens of "King Lear", themes of authority, indigenous identity, feminism, and political injustice and unrest. "Shakespeare Now!" is a series of short books that engage imaginatively and often provocatively with the possibilities of Shakespeare's plays. It goes back to the source - the most living language imaginable - and recaptures the excitement, audacity and surprise of Shakespeare. It will return you to the plays with opened eyes.

Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy is quoted more often than any other passage in Shakespeare.  It is arguably the most famous speech in the Western world - though few of us can remember much about it. This book carefully unpacks the individual words, phrases and sentences of Hamlet's soliloquy in order to reveal how and why it has achieved its remarkable hold on our culture. Hamlet's speech asks us to ask some of the most serious questions there are regarding knowledge and existence. In it, Shakespeare also expands the limits of the English language. Douglas Bruster therefore reads Hamlet's famous speech in "slow motion" to highlight its material, philosophical and cultural meaning and its resonance for generations of actors, playgoers and readers.

We need a poetic history of the ocean, and Shakespeare can help us find one. There's more real salt in the plays than we might expect. Shakespeare's dramatic ocean spans the God-sea of the ancient world and the immense blue vistas that early modern mariners navigated. Throughout his career, from the opening shipwrecks of The Comedy of Errors through The Tempest, Shakespeare's plays figure the ocean as shocking physical reality and mind-twisting symbol of change and instability. To fathom Shakespeare's ocean - to go down to its bottom - this book's chapters focus on different things that humans do with and in and near the sea: fathoming, keeping watch, swimming, beachcombing, fishing, and drowning. Mentz also sets Shakespeare's sea-poetry against modern literary sea-scapes, including the vast Pacific of Moby-Dick, the rocky coast of Charles Olson's Maximus Poems, and the lyrical waters of the postcolonial Caribbean. Uncovering the depths of Shakespeare's maritime world, this book draws out the centrality of the sea in our literary culture.

Shakespeare Inside goes behind the scenes to reveal Shakespeare at work in the most decisive institutional context of our time - in prisons. Based upon the author's experience of watching prison yard rehearsals and performances, and interviewing inmates, program directors, and wardens, Shakespeare Inside is not an objective, dispassionate account of how Shakespeare is bastardized by repressive institutions but offers a record of fiercely personal experiences. We hear ex-offender Mike Smith detail how playing Desdemona was vital to his rehabilitation; we sit in the audience of women inmates as they respond to the all-male Shakespeare Behind Bars touring production of Julius Caesar; and we listen to a chorus of unnamed voices explain how rewriting Hamlet helps them to survive solitary confinement. Shakespeare Inside probes any assumptions we might have about Shakespeare's performative function and asks what - if anything - is the proper place of Shakespeare in today's society.

Hamlet's Dreams brings together the Robben Island Prison of Nelson Mandela and the prison that is Denmark for Shakespeare's Hamlet. David Shalkwyk uses the circulation of the so-called 'Robben Island Shakespeare', a copy of the Alexander edition of the Complete Works that was secretly circulated, annotated and signed by a group of Robben Island political prisoner in the 1970s (including Nelson Mandela), to examine the representation and experience of imprisonment in South African prison memoirs and Shakespeare's Hamlet. The book looks at the ways in which oppressive spaces or circumstances restrict the ways in which personal identity can be formed or formulated in relation to others. The 'bad dreams' that keep Hamlet from considering himself the 'king of infinite space' are, it argues, the need for other people that becomes especially evident in situations of real or psychological imprisonment.

This is a provocative exploration of how the self is revealed or exposed in the experience of reading, viewing and writing about Shakespeare. Following the ethos and ambition of the "Shakespeare Now!" series, and harnessing the energy, challenge and vigour of the 'minigraph' from, "Shakespeare and I" is a provocative appeal and manifesto for a more personal form of criticism. A number of the most exciting and authoritative writers on Shakespeare examine and scrutinise their deepest, most personal and intimate responses to Shakespeare's plays and poems, to ask themselves if and how Shakespeare has made them the person they are. Their responses include autobiographical histories, reflections on their relationship to their professional, institutional or familial roles and meditations on the person-making force of religious or political conviction. There is a blog that enables both contributors and readers to continue the debate about why Shakespeare keeps us reading and what that means for our lives today.The book aims to inspire readers to think and write about their ever-changing personal relationship with Shakespeare: about how the poems and plays - and writing about them - can reveal or transform our sense of ourselves. "Shakespeare Now!" is a series of short books that engage imaginatively and often provocatively with the possibilities of Shakespeare's plays. It goes back to the source - the most living language imaginable - and recaptures the excitement, audacity and surprise of Shakespeare. It will return you to the plays with opened eyes.