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Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us about Our Past and Future by James Shapiro
swarnak84's review against another edition
5.0
An engaging read, encapsulating both themes from Shakespeare and important changes in American society. The relationships between Shakespeare and key Americans in history are examined and are a fascinating read.
emmaf09's review against another edition
5.0
A gripping, intriguing look into how the works of Shakespeare have shaped and reflected the development of the United States. The first few chapters build on primary documents provided in Shapiro’s Shakespeare in America anthology. By the time he gets to the Astor Place Riot, the narrative moves swiftly and cinematically, fully engrossing. The chapter about the development of the musical Kiss Me Kate and it’s reflections of post WWII marital relations was my favorite. The whole book moves at a quick pace, with interesting analysis and quality research. If you’re going to read one Shakespeare book this year, this is the one to choose.
sopopia's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
tense
slow-paced
5.0
SO. SO. GOOD
If you have any love of Shakespeare, and ESPECIALLY if you are an American, please take the time to read this book!! It spoke to my soul about just how needed Shakespeares words are in the modern era.
If you have any love of Shakespeare, and ESPECIALLY if you are an American, please take the time to read this book!! It spoke to my soul about just how needed Shakespeares words are in the modern era.
deirdrelistens2books's review against another edition
3.0
This was good but I only finished 80% of it and then it was due back to the library so I had to come back and finish 4 months later so I kinda forget the beginning but interesting insight on how Shakespeare had influenced American culture
tracithomas's review against another edition
2.0
As a lover of Shakespeare I can’t help but think of the lack of Shakespeare criticism coming from younger writers, from Black and brown writers, from women and trans writers, from queer writers, and from writers in so many other marginalized groups. I don’t know that this book needed to exist.
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Shapiro isn’t saying anything new. His perspective is neither fresh nor critical when we think about American culture and how it’s created and sustained. I can imagine a better version of this book that subverts and challenges thinking instead of playing into white male America’s notions of itself. The book has a few glimpses of this in the introduction and conclusion but everything in between falls short.
•
•
Shapiro isn’t saying anything new. His perspective is neither fresh nor critical when we think about American culture and how it’s created and sustained. I can imagine a better version of this book that subverts and challenges thinking instead of playing into white male America’s notions of itself. The book has a few glimpses of this in the introduction and conclusion but everything in between falls short.
lady_of_the_labyrinth's review against another edition
5.0
There’s nothing I can say that far more eloquent reviewers have not already said. However, I will say this; that ending hit me like a freight train.
Give this a read if you love Shakespeare, American history, and how the Bard was and still is as relevant as ever.
Definitely a reread for me.
Give this a read if you love Shakespeare, American history, and how the Bard was and still is as relevant as ever.
Definitely a reread for me.
neilrcoulter's review against another edition
3.0
James Shapiro’s Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us about Our Past and Future is a really interesting way to look at Shakespeare through the lens of American history—and actually, it’s much more a book of vignettes from American history than a book about Shakespeare’s works. The chapters are independent from one another, so readers could easily skip to whichever sections they’re most interested in. Each chapter gives a snapshot of a moment in American history that in some way connects to one or more Shakespeare plays.
Where the book is good, it’s thoroughly fascinating. I especially learned a lot in chapter 3, about the 1849 Astor Place riot; chapter 4, about John Wilkes Booth and Abraham Lincoln; and chapter 5, about immigration issues in the early twentieth century. Some other chapters seemed to me much less insightful—chapter 6 is mostly a summary of the musical Kiss Me, Kate, and chapter 7 of Shakespeare in Love, neither of which I’m particularly interested in. Those chapters had less nuanced engagement with the broader culture.
What comes through in all of the chapters together is the idea that America has always been basically as it is now. We see in one chapter after another that every era of America, not just our own, has been “a divided America.” There’s nothing new under the sun of our current political debates—which is, I suppose, either somewhat relieving or utterly demoralizing.
The book’s subtitle—“What his plays tell us about our past and future”—is overly grandiose and never quite realized. In his final chapter, Shapiro considers the 2017 Delacorte Theater production of Julius Caesar in Central Park, in which Caesar was portrayed to look like then-president Donald Trump. The production attracted a lot of outraged, angry attention from people who misunderstood it (though, to be fair, it’s easy to see why) as encouraging violence against the president and, perhaps, conservative values generally. Shapiro gazes at representatives of the far Right from a distance, never able to see further than a kind of “Wow, these people are just insane, not like me and my literary, artistic friends” perspective. I don’t skew politically conservative myself (I tend toward that most challenging and incomprehensible position of “moderate”; in other words, I don’t fit in anywhere), but I think a deeper understanding of conservative Americans requires something more than just tuning in to Fox & Friends and other conservative media. Shapiro-as-researcher/ethnographer really disappointed me in the conclusion of the book.
On the last couple of pages, Shapiro blithely presumes that “The future of Shakespeare . . . would appear secure. No writer’s work is read by more Americans. . . . Shakespeare alone among all writers was named [by the national Common Core standards] as one whose works ought to be studied by every young American” (220). I think he vastly underestimates the effects of a cultural mindset that sees Shakespeare as a “dead white male” and therefore at least irrelevant, if not harmful, for students to spend time with. And Shapiro overestimates public school teachers’ familiarity with and affection for Shakespeare’s works. That perspective on literature—quick to discard established “dead white male” works in the canon in favor of works by underrepresented authors, under the assumption that the dead white males have little to contribute—is something that I believe comes more from a liberal than a conservative stance. So Shapiro needs to consider more seriously the possibility that it’s not the “deranged Right-wingers” who are removing Shakespeare from America; it may in fact have a lot to do with Tenured Professor World, of which Shapiro is obviously a proud denizen.
Where the book is good, it’s thoroughly fascinating. I especially learned a lot in chapter 3, about the 1849 Astor Place riot; chapter 4, about John Wilkes Booth and Abraham Lincoln; and chapter 5, about immigration issues in the early twentieth century. Some other chapters seemed to me much less insightful—chapter 6 is mostly a summary of the musical Kiss Me, Kate, and chapter 7 of Shakespeare in Love, neither of which I’m particularly interested in. Those chapters had less nuanced engagement with the broader culture.
What comes through in all of the chapters together is the idea that America has always been basically as it is now. We see in one chapter after another that every era of America, not just our own, has been “a divided America.” There’s nothing new under the sun of our current political debates—which is, I suppose, either somewhat relieving or utterly demoralizing.
The book’s subtitle—“What his plays tell us about our past and future”—is overly grandiose and never quite realized. In his final chapter, Shapiro considers the 2017 Delacorte Theater production of Julius Caesar in Central Park, in which Caesar was portrayed to look like then-president Donald Trump. The production attracted a lot of outraged, angry attention from people who misunderstood it (though, to be fair, it’s easy to see why) as encouraging violence against the president and, perhaps, conservative values generally. Shapiro gazes at representatives of the far Right from a distance, never able to see further than a kind of “Wow, these people are just insane, not like me and my literary, artistic friends” perspective. I don’t skew politically conservative myself (I tend toward that most challenging and incomprehensible position of “moderate”; in other words, I don’t fit in anywhere), but I think a deeper understanding of conservative Americans requires something more than just tuning in to Fox & Friends and other conservative media. Shapiro-as-researcher/ethnographer really disappointed me in the conclusion of the book.
On the last couple of pages, Shapiro blithely presumes that “The future of Shakespeare . . . would appear secure. No writer’s work is read by more Americans. . . . Shakespeare alone among all writers was named [by the national Common Core standards] as one whose works ought to be studied by every young American” (220). I think he vastly underestimates the effects of a cultural mindset that sees Shakespeare as a “dead white male” and therefore at least irrelevant, if not harmful, for students to spend time with. And Shapiro overestimates public school teachers’ familiarity with and affection for Shakespeare’s works. That perspective on literature—quick to discard established “dead white male” works in the canon in favor of works by underrepresented authors, under the assumption that the dead white males have little to contribute—is something that I believe comes more from a liberal than a conservative stance. So Shapiro needs to consider more seriously the possibility that it’s not the “deranged Right-wingers” who are removing Shakespeare from America; it may in fact have a lot to do with Tenured Professor World, of which Shapiro is obviously a proud denizen.
andtheitoldyousos's review against another edition
5.0
The 2016 election: we will eventually be far away from that time, but while we wait to heal we will continue to publish works - everything from tweets to films- about how it shaped our current situation.
In 2017, the Delacorte Theater in Central Park staged a production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Shakespeare had been done live in Central Park for years. Julius Caesar had been performed steadily around the world since it debuted in 1599. Caesar has taken on many depictions throughout the years; within the last half a century he has been made to resemble Huey Long, Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher, and Barack Obama. This time, Caesar was a stand-in for Trump; tall, blonde, and orange.
You can imagine how that went over. Trump's supporters, unable to differentiate art from life, lost their collective minds over a theater company depicting his brutal death on stage every night- never mind the fact that it was not Trump dying; it was Caesar- who was *spoiler alert* 100% stabbed to death centuries ago. Conservative media exploded, and threats from Trump supporters flooded not just Delacorte's inboxes but that of theaters all over the United States. Threats of murder, hellfire, and rape- yes, people sent emails to theater companies threatening to rape them over the presentation of Trump as Caesar- filled voicemail boxes across the country. The production went on none the less. Shakespeare always survives American turmoil.
You don't need me to tell you that our current situation is bad, and James Shapiro is acutely aware of the roiling mess that we currently inhabit. Shapiro is using this moment to focus a lens back on American history in general; Shakespeare has always been a part of the political realm; people on both sides of the aisle have venerated, revered, reviled, and formed his words to their fancy since before America was America.
Shapiro makes a point early on as to why Shakespeare may have been so beloved by early settlers throughout North America: the bible. The King James Bible was written in 1611, and the style of language between Shakespeare and the contemporary gospel was the same; people felt that Shakespeare spoke to them in the same voice that the bible used. Cabins and classrooms across America always held at least two books: the bible and a collection of Shakespeare.
Instead of writing about American history as a whole, Shapiro wisely chooses to highlight the roles of Shakespeare's work throughout particularly fraught and meaningful moments across our short history. We have been divided for quite some time over quite a few things. Shakespeare in a Divided America focuses specifically on miscegenation, manifest destiny, class warfare, assassination, immigration, marriage, and adultery, and how leaders, firebrands, stalwarts, scholars, and many others found inspiration and permission in Shakespeare's words to press their own agendas (some noble, some silly, some just plain hateful) onto others.
I was particularly taken by Shapiro's breakdown of the role of toxic masculinity in Andrew Jackson's White House that so eerily predicted today's predicaments. This book provided welcome doses of reason and clarity around the woes of the world at large, and I do hope that we can learn from them and finally, eventually move on to something better. Now, when we look back, we find ourselves gazing at our own reflections.
In 2017, the Delacorte Theater in Central Park staged a production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Shakespeare had been done live in Central Park for years. Julius Caesar had been performed steadily around the world since it debuted in 1599. Caesar has taken on many depictions throughout the years; within the last half a century he has been made to resemble Huey Long, Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher, and Barack Obama. This time, Caesar was a stand-in for Trump; tall, blonde, and orange.
You can imagine how that went over. Trump's supporters, unable to differentiate art from life, lost their collective minds over a theater company depicting his brutal death on stage every night- never mind the fact that it was not Trump dying; it was Caesar- who was *spoiler alert* 100% stabbed to death centuries ago. Conservative media exploded, and threats from Trump supporters flooded not just Delacorte's inboxes but that of theaters all over the United States. Threats of murder, hellfire, and rape- yes, people sent emails to theater companies threatening to rape them over the presentation of Trump as Caesar- filled voicemail boxes across the country. The production went on none the less. Shakespeare always survives American turmoil.
You don't need me to tell you that our current situation is bad, and James Shapiro is acutely aware of the roiling mess that we currently inhabit. Shapiro is using this moment to focus a lens back on American history in general; Shakespeare has always been a part of the political realm; people on both sides of the aisle have venerated, revered, reviled, and formed his words to their fancy since before America was America.
Shapiro makes a point early on as to why Shakespeare may have been so beloved by early settlers throughout North America: the bible. The King James Bible was written in 1611, and the style of language between Shakespeare and the contemporary gospel was the same; people felt that Shakespeare spoke to them in the same voice that the bible used. Cabins and classrooms across America always held at least two books: the bible and a collection of Shakespeare.
Instead of writing about American history as a whole, Shapiro wisely chooses to highlight the roles of Shakespeare's work throughout particularly fraught and meaningful moments across our short history. We have been divided for quite some time over quite a few things. Shakespeare in a Divided America focuses specifically on miscegenation, manifest destiny, class warfare, assassination, immigration, marriage, and adultery, and how leaders, firebrands, stalwarts, scholars, and many others found inspiration and permission in Shakespeare's words to press their own agendas (some noble, some silly, some just plain hateful) onto others.
I was particularly taken by Shapiro's breakdown of the role of toxic masculinity in Andrew Jackson's White House that so eerily predicted today's predicaments. This book provided welcome doses of reason and clarity around the woes of the world at large, and I do hope that we can learn from them and finally, eventually move on to something better. Now, when we look back, we find ourselves gazing at our own reflections.
marrry's review against another edition
4.0
I am a big Shakespeare fan and really loved reading and learning about the cultural context for some of the plays and how they were used and what they represented in different times and situations in American history. Shapiro is so articulate and the material is so thoughtful and interesting, I would read this one again and again.
amymo73's review against another edition
4.0
What I am loving about the Chautauqua books is that I'm picking up some things that are fascinating and I love but that I wouldn't necessarily have found on my own. And isn't that why we like lists? To find new things?
I bought a copy of this at the Institute earlier this month and I LOVED it. I wasn't sure what to expect, but Shapiro does a great job organizing -- taking specific events/issues in historical context and the ways that Shakespeare played a part in the debate. And isn't it interesting how we use Shakespeare in our communication about things which are important to us? And how interesting it is that more than 300 years later there is still plenty of room for interpretation. Truly, I love that about work. And I realized how little Shakespeare I've really read or understand. Also how much we are still debating, arguing, the same topics just with different costumes and set design.
My favorite parts:
"Shakespeare's habit of presenting both sides of an argument. ... Shakespeare was very much of his age, a product of an Elizabethan educational system that trained young minds to argue 'in utramaque partem' on both sides of the question."
I was fascinated by the chapter on Class Warfare and the history of the theater in New York.
"At stake were competing notions of what sort of behavior was acceptable in a theater, as well as diverging American and British approaches to Shakespeare."
"The violence at the Opera House brought into sharp relief the growing problem of income inequality in an America that preferred the fiction that it was still a classless society."
"What did change in the aftermath of the Astor Place was that violent protests in theaters were no longer tolerated. When competing claims over freedom of speech collided, the right of actors to be heard would prevail over the right of protesters to shout them down. ... Theatergoing in American would henceforth be a quieter and more passive experience."
The chapter on the immigration debate -- so topical now:
"Community in Shakespeare's comedies depends -- much like immigration policy -- on who is barred admission as much as who is accepted. ... A more hopeful community at the end of a Shakespeare comedy typically depends on somebody's exclusion."
"The real aim of restrictionists was to harden American hearts against an open-door policy, to no longer think of their country as a refuge."
"The playing of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' was both new and controversial. It was only in this year that President Wilson had ordered that it be performed at military events and recent efforts in Baltimore (where its lyrics were written) to impose a fine on anyone who refused to stand when it was played were met by resistance to 'the folly of trying to instill patriotism by law, to create reverence by statute.'"
What I did like about the 1998 chapter about the movie Shakespeare in Love is the way he treated Harvey Weinstein and showed him through a lens of what we now know about him. I'm grateful he spent time on that.
"At stake in what sort of union is deemed acceptable is how tolerant a community imagines itself to be. Comedies tend to be more socially conservative than tragedies. ... If you want to know what a culture is truly anxious about, look at what kinds of unions make its audiences uncomfortable."
I bought a copy of this at the Institute earlier this month and I LOVED it. I wasn't sure what to expect, but Shapiro does a great job organizing -- taking specific events/issues in historical context and the ways that Shakespeare played a part in the debate. And isn't it interesting how we use Shakespeare in our communication about things which are important to us? And how interesting it is that more than 300 years later there is still plenty of room for interpretation. Truly, I love that about work. And I realized how little Shakespeare I've really read or understand. Also how much we are still debating, arguing, the same topics just with different costumes and set design.
My favorite parts:
"Shakespeare's habit of presenting both sides of an argument. ... Shakespeare was very much of his age, a product of an Elizabethan educational system that trained young minds to argue 'in utramaque partem' on both sides of the question."
I was fascinated by the chapter on Class Warfare and the history of the theater in New York.
"At stake were competing notions of what sort of behavior was acceptable in a theater, as well as diverging American and British approaches to Shakespeare."
"The violence at the Opera House brought into sharp relief the growing problem of income inequality in an America that preferred the fiction that it was still a classless society."
"What did change in the aftermath of the Astor Place was that violent protests in theaters were no longer tolerated. When competing claims over freedom of speech collided, the right of actors to be heard would prevail over the right of protesters to shout them down. ... Theatergoing in American would henceforth be a quieter and more passive experience."
The chapter on the immigration debate -- so topical now:
"Community in Shakespeare's comedies depends -- much like immigration policy -- on who is barred admission as much as who is accepted. ... A more hopeful community at the end of a Shakespeare comedy typically depends on somebody's exclusion."
"The real aim of restrictionists was to harden American hearts against an open-door policy, to no longer think of their country as a refuge."
"The playing of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' was both new and controversial. It was only in this year that President Wilson had ordered that it be performed at military events and recent efforts in Baltimore (where its lyrics were written) to impose a fine on anyone who refused to stand when it was played were met by resistance to 'the folly of trying to instill patriotism by law, to create reverence by statute.'"
What I did like about the 1998 chapter about the movie Shakespeare in Love is the way he treated Harvey Weinstein and showed him through a lens of what we now know about him. I'm grateful he spent time on that.
"At stake in what sort of union is deemed acceptable is how tolerant a community imagines itself to be. Comedies tend to be more socially conservative than tragedies. ... If you want to know what a culture is truly anxious about, look at what kinds of unions make its audiences uncomfortable."