Shakespeare's Political Spirit

Reading Shakespeare's drama as a negative mode of political experience and thought, Nicholas Luke reorients how we think about politics in Shakespeare. He draws on a long religious and philosophical tradition to develop an original notion of negative political theology, establishing Shakespeare's drama as a force of freedom and creativity.

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This exciting and challenging study reorients how we think about politics in Shakespeare and on the early modern stage. By reading Shakespeare's political drama as a negative mode of political experience and thought, Nicholas Luke allows us to appreciate the imaginative and disruptive elements of plays that might seem politically pessimistic. Drawing on a long religious and philosophical tradition of negativity and considering the writings of Hegel, Kierkegaard, Benjamin, Adorno, Derrida and Badiou, Luke pursues a phenomenology of political spirit that looks to the creative potential of experiences of failure, haunting, estrangement, impasse and dream. Through his notion of a negative political theology, he challenges traditional understandings of political theology and shows that Shakespeare's drama of negativity is more than a form of pessimistic critique, but rather a force of freedom and invention that animates the political imaginations of its audience.