| Description |
1 online resource (x, 159 pages) |
| Contents |
Introduction -- Shakespeare's empathetic imagination -- Richard III : unrealized potential -- Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V : beginning -- The Merchant of Venice : blueprint -- As You Like It : gender -- Hamlet : self -- Othello : race and class -- King Lear : age -- Measure for Measure : a world without empathy -- Antony and Cleopatra : wider vistas -- The Winter's Tale : across generations -- Conclusion |
| Summary |
While exploring Shakespeare'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 Shakespeare'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 Shakespeare'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 "the other." 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 literature's power to champion what is best in us |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Paula Marantz Cohen is the Dean of the Pennoni Honors College and Distinguished Professor of English at Drexel University, as well as host of the television interview show The Civil Discourse. She lives in Philadelphia |
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Print version record |
| Subject |
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Characters.
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| SUBJECT |
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 fast |
| Subject |
Empathy in literature.
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Kindness in literature.
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LITERARY CRITICISM / Shakespeare.
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Kindness in literature
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Characters and characteristics
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Empathy in literature
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| Genre/Form |
Literary criticism
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Criticism, interpretation, etc.
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Literary criticism.
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Critiques littéraires.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9780300258325 |
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0300258321 |
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