Reviews - The Great White Bard: Shakespeare, Race and the Future

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106 reviews for:

The Great White Bard: Shakespeare, Race and the Future

I went through a Shakespeare deep dive maybe ten years ago where I read almost every play—I consider myself a fan. So I was instantly interested in this book, which tackles the tricky subject of race and Shakespeare. On the one hand we have the sort of “Shakespeare is perfect and ‘wokeness’ is evil” nutjob crowd. And on the other hand we see serious calls to abandon Shakespeare entirely, which is the kind of response I don’t find very useful. Karim-Cooper, an accomplished Shakespeare scholar and woman of color, does the hard work, turning to the text, and the history of racial language, to engage directly with these divergent viewpoints. She tackles questions of authorial intent, inescapable racist imagery, complex casting challenges, and more.

astridandlouise's review against another edition

2.5

challenging dark informative reflective medium-paced

himpersonal's review against another edition

5.0

emotional informative sad fast-paced

I always hated Shakespeare for his genius, because he disguised racism and misogyny as poetry. Reading this book validated my feelings. I was an English major, and I truly hated every Shakespeare class. However, I was surprised that he was the one who brought racism consciously into society, making it acceptable. And from here, we are now living in a world where racism and misogyny are baked into our society in very visible ways (social media, music, movies, books, laws, politics, etc.). Thanks Shakespeare, you jerk!

Content Warnings

frabanzi's review against another edition

5.0

emotional informative reflective fast-paced

ajnorelli's review against another edition

4.5

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

floatwiththesticks's review against another edition

4.0

I wish I’d had this book whilst studying at uni. It brought the plays (several of which I knew little about) alive in new ways, re-contextualising for the modern reader AND debunking the myth that race wasn’t a ‘thing’ for Jacobean writers and their audiences.

This will make you want to revisit familiar plays, characters and passages with opened eyes. Brilliantly narrated by the author too.

beforeviolets's review

5.0

I’m not kidding when I say that every single person should read this book. I don’t care if you engage with Shakespeare or not, if you consume media, you should read this book!!!

Through exploring racial depictions and associations in and around Shakespeare’s work, Farah Karim-Cooper opens doorways to understanding marginalization in media and popular culture from early modern England to the modern day.

This is such an accessible read, and it does an incredible job of breaking down the dangers of putting Shakespeare (and other literary greats) on pedestals. It brilliantly explains the history of racialized imagery, language, and ideals throughout the Bard’s plays, how they’ve consequently affected our subliminal associations, and even discusses the act of reckoning with those ideals in our own classrooms, theaters, and minds.

I genuinely cannot sing this book’s praises enough.