Overview

This book is the result of a life-long companionship with William Shakespeare. Annie-Paule de Prinsac has never been in doubt about his mannerism, whose many guises she reveals through close readings of selected plays. Such mannerism, however, in a kingdom torn by religious conflicts, violent oppression, and censorship raises questions. It seems out of step with the spirit of the Elizabethan Court, but also seems to belie the views of so many critics regarding his alleged social background and lack of education. How and why, then, did Shakespeare become a mannerist artist? In the end, it was his Catholic upbringing, long silenced or left aside by university scholarship, that provided the answer. Before becoming a man for all times, Shakespeare was a man of his time; and so, we cannot hope to understand his mind if we are blind to the Catholic dimension of his work, and the Italian flavor (French aroma at times as well) he chose to give to most of his plays. Clearly, the Bard had absorbed Counter Reformation strategies in art, and in tandem invented his own dramatic practice to preserve his now forbidden faith, while yet speaking the truth even so. The complexities of mannerism in his hands proved a most propitious way to teach and heal his fellowmen for over twenty years without ever having to change course. He so refined and elevated this ploy of dissimulation that he never had to betray the deep moral content of his plays. His aim, like Michelangelo's, certainly was ""to move mortals to tears and devotion.""

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Reviews

""In Shakespeare, the Magician and Healer, Annie-Paule de Prinsac offers an original and quite remarkable account of Shakespeare's plays and poems. Almost everyone will here find insights into Shakespeare's works that both challenge and enhance their own insights."" --R.V. YOUNG, author of Shakespeare and the Idea of Western Civilization ""The author's personal familiarity with French culture and literature allows her to see Shakespeare from an unusual and fresh vantage point."" --ROBERT C. EVANS, Auburn University at Montgomery ""Annie-Paule de Prinsac has given us a terrifically revealing, necessary, and exciting reading of Shakespeare-'healer and magician' indeed."" --JAMES COMO, author of C. S. Lewis: A Very Short Introduction ""In this ambitious and energetic study, Annie-Paule de Prinsac not only argues for the Catholic formation of Shakespeare's dramas but also for their coded mannerism, wherein the Catholicism proscribed in the playwright's England still finds voice and expression."" --JAMES MATTHEW WILSON, author of Saint Thomas and the Forbidden Birds ""Deftly weaving threads of theology, history, and aesthetics into her tapestry, de Prinsac provides a portrait of Shakespeare as an adroit conjuror whose spells reveal ever-new depths of religious and anthropological riches."" --STEPHEN MIRARCHI, Benedictine College ""In the recent and growing body of criticism that examines Shakespeare as a Catholic author, this book considering the Bard through a Mannerist lens provides a fresh and intriguing perspective. I highly recommend this elegantly written work."" --MARY REICHARDT, editor of Encyclopedia of Catholic Literature ""Thios book unique contribution lies in connecting Shakespeare's elusive religious convictions to emergent European aesthetic developments in painting, music, opera, architecture, and sculpture which emphasize indirection and competing perspectives."" --AARON URBANCZYK, Franciscan University ""Annie-Paule de Prinsac guides us through the psychology of England's greatest playwright in a manner both edifying and illuminating."" --MICHAEL MARTIN, author of Mythologies of the Wild of God ""The elegantly written Shakespeare, the Magician and the Healer blends deep scholarship with fascinating insights into the individual plays and the moral and stylistic currents that run through the long arc of Shakespeare's works."" --RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Former Head, International School of Boston

Author Information

ANNIE-PAULE MIELLE DE PRINSAC was assistant Professor at the University of Bourgogne (now retired). A musician, she first studied Elizabethan music and taught at the University of Sussex (England). She obtained a Sachs research scholarship at the University of Harvard, where she worked on Shakespeare's Last Plays, and followed her husband to Madagascar, where she taught at the University in Antananarivo. She later became a specialist in African American Literature at the French Academe with two books on Toni Morrison. She was a fellow of the Du Bois Institute at Harvard (Summer/Fall 2002). She has also written many articles on Shakespeare and African American literature (Morrison, Harriet Jacobs, Langston Hughes, E. J. Gaines).

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