David Womersley, "Thinking Through Shakespeare" (Princeton UP, 2026)

About this episode

David Womersley discusses his book 'Thinking Through Shakespeare', exploring how Shakespeare's plays address deep human questions.

In the eighteenth century, Samuel Johnson famously argued that Shakespeare is enduringly popular because he “is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and of life.” Johnson’s view largely prevailed until the late twentieth century, when it was challenged by a growing scepticism about the existence of a general human nature. In Thinking Through Shakespeare (Princeton UP, 2026), eminent literary critic David Womersley pushes back against this change by exploring how Shakespeare’s plays think through—and invite us to think through—deep human questions of lasting importance.Thinking Through Shakespeare explores four perennial human problems: personal identity, the distinction between civilization and barbarism, the relation between political power and religious authority and the tension between means and ends. It examines the history of these problems, from antiquity to today, and traces how Shakespeare engages with them in the great tragedies—Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear—but also in his other plays. Without arguing that human nature is universal or unchanging, or that…

People in this episode

Guest: David Womersley

Topics covered

• Shakespeare
• literary criticism
• human nature
• personal identity
• political power
• religious authority
• civilization vs barbarism

Keywords

• Shakespeare
• David Womersley
• literary criticism
• human questions
• tragedies
• personal identity
• political power
• religious authority

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Thinking Through Shakespeare, Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear

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