Why Read Shakespeare? treats Shakespeare as a dramatist who thinks philosophically through stories. Written for students and general readers, the book argues that Shakespeare is worth reading because of the provocative answers he offers to three philosophical questions: What is love? Do human beings have free will? And why does political authority command obedience?
This book addresses each question alongside one of Shakespeare’s genres. In comedies like A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night, Shakespeare depicts love as hopelessly irrational, shaped by impulse and imagination. The tragedies explore free will in the religious world of the Reformation, where characters such as Othello, Lear, Macbeth, Romeo, Juliet, and Hamlet make choices of their own, even when they are bound by the dictates of fate, providence, and plot. The histories, especially Richard III and those of the Second Tetralogy, argue that political authority depends less on bloodline or divine sanction than on the compelling performance of authority. The epilogue turns to Measure for Measure to show how these problems overlap.
The book is ideal for readers new to Shakespeare, instructors seeking accessible conceptual approaches, and students looking for routes into Shakespeare's historical contexts and relevance.