Shakespeare, the Renaissance and Empire: Volume II: Poetry, Philosophy and Politics

Shakespeare, the Renaissance and Empire: 　 Poetry, Philosophy and Politics is the second volume of this study and builds on the first, which concentrated on related matters, including geography and language. In both volumes, a key focus is close analysis of the text and an attention to Shakespeare’s use of signs, verbal and visual, to represent the world in poetry and prose, in dramatic and non-dramatic work as well as some of the contexts before, during and after the Renaissance. Shakespeare’s representation of character and action in poetry and theatre, his interpretation and subsequent interpretations of him are central to the book as seen through these topics: German Shakespeare, a life and no life, aesthetics and ethics, liberty and tyranny, philosophy and poetry, theory and practice, image and text. The book also explores the typology of then and now, local and global.

Jonathan Locke Hart received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in English and a Ph.D. in History from the University of Cambridge. Dr. Hart is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and is Chair Professor, the School of Translation Studies, Shandong University. He is also Fellow, Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, Victoria College, University of Toronto; Associate, Harvard University Herbaria; and Life Member, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. In recent years, he was Core Faculty, Comparative Literature, Western University and Chair Professor of the School of Foreign Languages and Director of the Centre for Creative Writing, Literary Culture and Translation, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He has written over twenty books and edited others and contributed book chapters. A winner of many international awards, including two Fulbrights to Harvard, and having served on national and international committees, including Fulbright and Killam, he has written over 100 articles and essays and has held visiting appointments at Harvard, Cambridge, Princeton, the Sorbonne-Nouvelle (Paris III), Leiden, UC Irvine and elsewhere and has given classes, talks, readings and lectures internationally.