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9781474463416

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"It was Nietzsche who in 1876 declared that Shakespeare was Montaigne's ""best reader""; but we've had to wait for Peter Platt's Shakespeare's Essays to show in all its complexity how and why this was so. Platt brilliantly illuminates Shakespeare debt to Florio's translation of Montaigne, revealing how profoundly the Essays would shape his thinking from Hamlet to The Tempest. This is a deeply rewarding and insightful book, the product of sustained reflection, one that enables us to see afresh how the greatest Renaissance dramatist was challenged and inspired by the greatest essayist of the age.-- ""James Shapiro, author of 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare"" When someone asks me who, among all the great writers of the past, would you most want to meet, I always find myself hesitating between Shakespeare and Montaigne. In this scholarly, thoughtful and persuasive book, Peter Platt brings the two Renaissance giants together in a richly illuminating conversation. Making good on Nietzsche's claim that Shakespeare was Montaigne's ""best reader,"" Platt shows that the whole second half of Shakespeare's career, from the problem comedies to the great tragedies to the late romances, was deeply marked by his encounter with Montaigne's Essays.-- ""Stephen Greenblatt, author of Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare"""

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Peter G. Platt, Professor of English, Barnard College.

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