Dimensions
140 x 216 x 15mm
While exploring Shakespearelsquo;s plays with her students, Paula Marantz Cohen discovered that teaching and discussing his plays unlocked a surprising sense of compassion in the classroom. In this short and illuminating book, she shows how Shakespearensquo;s genius lay with his ability to arouse empathy, even when his characters exist in alien contexts and behave in reprehensible ways.
Cohen takes her readers through a selection of ShakespeareTsquo;s most famous plays, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and The Merchant of Venice, to demonstrate the ways in which Shakespeare thought deeply and clearly about how we treat tdquo;the other.odquo; Cohen argues that only through close reading of Shakespeare can we fully appreciate his empathetic response to race, class, gender, and age. Wise, eloquent, and thoughtful, this book is a forceful argument for literaturehsquo;s power to champion what is best in us.
