Holding a Mirror up to Nature: Shame, Guilt, and Violence in Shakespeare

James Gilligan (New York University),David A.J. Richards

Holding a Mirror up to Nature: Shame, Guilt, and Violence in Shakespeare
Format
Hardback
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Country
United Kingdom
Published
2 December 2021
Pages
250
ISBN
9781108833394

Holding a Mirror up to Nature: Shame, Guilt, and Violence in Shakespeare

James Gilligan (New York University),David A.J. Richards

Shakespeare has been dubbed the greatest psychologist of all time. This book seeks to prove that statement by comparing the playwright’s fictional characters with real-life examples of violent individuals, from criminals to political actors. For Gilligan and Richards, the propensity to kill others, even (or especially) when it results in the killer’s own death, is the most serious threat to the continued survival of humanity. In this volume, the authors show how humiliated men, with their desire for retribution and revenge, apocryphal violence and political religions, justify and commit violence, and how love and restorative justice can prevent violence. Although our destructive power is far greater than anything that existed in his day, Shakespeare has much to teach us about the psychological and cultural roots of all violence. In this book the authors tell what Shakespeare shows, through the stories of his characters: what causes violence and what prevents it.

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