Grounded in twenty years of study and public speaking, R. V. Young’s Shakespeare and the Idea of Western Civilization is primarily a work of literary criticism. Combining “a close reading of the text with an effort to locate the work in the context of political, social, and literary history,” Young discusses a handful of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, and histories in moderate but vivid detail. For him, the ideal critic is one whose arguments and observations, whether we accept or reject them, send us back to the original text in a more thoughtful state of mind. As Young sees it, the purpose of literary studies is to “lead us out (educare) of ourselves—of our preconceptions, our prejudices, our partisanship, and our interests.” This book, clearly a product of his personal wrestling with various conundrums posed by the Bard, is an invitation to commence or continue searching in Shakespeare for a better understanding of ourselves and of the world.
