Overview

Jan Grzanka's book is a collection of sixteen essays devoted to the works of William Shakespeare, written with passionate and curious theatergoers in mind. The author encourages readers to become directors themselves as they read, discovering their own meanings and co-creating the significance of Shakespeare's plays. It is an invitation to make creative choices and discover aspects of Shakespeare's thinking that remain relevant today. “Jan Grzanka's essay is an excellent account of how Shakespeare's works can resonate in our contemporary reception. The author is neither a literary scholar nor a theatre scholar. He is a philosopher who has found in the great playwright's plays fascinating material for reflection in the context - on the one hand - of his own reading, but also in the juxtaposition of his reading of the plays with their theatrical realisations. To this Grzanka incorporates what can be called experience and observation of his own reality. As a result, he offers the reader interesting and unusual material for reflection and at the same time infects them with his enthusiasm for Shakespeare. He invites the reader to reread, to go to the theatre, to discover their own Shakespeare and, through his dramas, to think more deeply about their own experience of the world.” – Prof. Dr hab. Marta Gibińska-Marzec, Uniwersytet SWPS

Full Product Details

Author:   Jan Grzanka
Publisher:   Peter Lang AG
Imprint:   Peter Lang AG
Edition:   New edition
Weight:   0.696kg
ISBN:  

9783631942161

ISBN 10:   3631942168
Pages:   490
Publication Date:   30 March 2026
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

Preview - Chapter 1: Shakespeare’s Walden (As You Like It, 1599–1600) - Chapter 2: It’s only love (Romeo and Juliet, 1595) - Chapter 3: The course of true love never did run smooth (Antony and Cleopatra, 1606–1607) - Chapter 4: Utopia in The Tempest, or the tempest in Utopia? (The Tempest, 1611) - Chapter 5: Is Essex Shakespeare’s Brutus or Cassius? (Julius Caesar, 1600) - Chapter 6: Politics in the service of power, or power trapped in politics? (Measure for Measure, 1604) - Chapter 7: Macbeth in the mousetrap (Macbeth, 1606) - Chapter 8: Shakespeare’s fake news (Richard III, 1590–1593) - Chapter 9: Othello’s paradise lost (Othello, 1605) - Chapter 10: In the grip of a mythical evil (Titus Andronicus, 1593) - Chapter 11: Confounded by Hamlet (Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, 1600) - Chapter 12: Coached by King Lear (King Lear, 1605) - Chapter 13: On trial (The Merchant of Venice, 1596) - Chapter 14: Trapped in a matrix or in Plato’s cave? Misogyny ltalian style (The Taming of the Shrew, 1594) - Chapter 15: Falstaff’s naïve delights (The Merry Wives of Windsor, 1602) - Chapter 16: A dream of free sex (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1595) - Afterthoughts

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Author Information

Jan Grzanka holds a PhD in Philosophy from Catholic University of Lublin. He is a member of PTFT and PTF. Editor-in-chief of journals: Universitas Gedanensis and Festival Reminiscences. Vice-President of the Polish Shakespeare Society. Author and co-author of books on philosophy and Shakespearean studies.

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