Shakespeare

"[T]his slim volume…is committed to a description of Shakespeare’s thought as it is evinced in the works which he has left us.” Noted feminist and internationally bestselling author Germaine Greer explores Shakespeare as a thinker, unraveling the methods he used to dramatize moral and intellectual issues. Her astute and highly original look at the Bard covers his life, his poetics and politics, his characters (especially his "passionate and pure” females), his audience, and his theater—all placed in the larger context of Elizabethan society and culture. As long as Shakespeare's work remains central to the English-speaking world, Greer concludes, it will retain the values that make it unique.

Germaine Greer examines Shakespeare's plays in detail, revealing how he dramatized moral and intellectual issues in such a way that his audience became dazzlingly aware of an imaginative dimension to daily life. Greer argues that as long as Shakespeare remains central to English cultural life, the country will retain the values that make it unique in the world, namely tolerance, pluralism, and a profound commitment to democracy.

Germaine Greer is a writer, academic, and critic, and is widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of our time. Her bestselling books include The Female Eunuch and The Whole Woman. She lives in northwest Essex, England, and has taught Shakespeare at universities in Australia, Britain, and the United States.