For two days, I was enthralled by Stephen Greenblatt’s latest offering, Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics , a fresh reading of both Shakespea...
For two days, I was enthralled by Stephen Greenblatt’s latest offering, Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics, a fresh reading of both Shakespeare’s works and the shared political situations of the Elizabethan age and of modern-day America, and, dare I say, of India. Consider the important questions Greenblatt asks before he begins his arguments: “Why, in some circumstances, does evidence of mendacity, crudeness, or cruelty serve not as a fatal disadvantage but as an allure, attracting ardent followers? Why do otherwise proud and self-respecting people submit to the sheer effrontery of the tyrant, his sense that he can get away with saying and doing anything he likes, his spectacular indecency?”
Greenblatt is as enthralling to speak to as to read, for he listens patiently to every question and answers with the eagerness of a teacher and the clarity of a thinker. At the Jaipur Literature Festival, the John Cogan University Professor of Humanities at Harvard spoke to Scroll.in about the importance of university spaces and studying literature, of New Historicism – a reading method he has developed – and of the everlasting vigour of Shakespeare’s lines.
Why should we study literature? We are often told humanities students are not productive for the development of the nation. What do...
