The Great White Bard

How to Love Shakespeare While Talking About Race

De: Farah Karim-Cooper

Narrado por: Farah Karim-Cooper, Adjoa Andoh

CHOSEN AS ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: TIME, NPR, The New Yorker, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly

As we witness monuments of white Western history fall, many are asking how is Shakespeare still relevant?

Professor Farah Karim-Cooper has dedicated her career to the Bard, which is why she wants to take the playwright down from his pedestal to unveil a Shakespeare for the twenty-first century. If we persist in reading Shakespeare as representative of only one group, as the very pinnacle of the white Western canon, then he will truly be in peril.

Combining piercing analysis of race, gender and otherness in famous plays from Antony and Cleopatra to The Tempest with a radical reappraisal of Elizabethan London, The Great White Bard asks us neither to idealize nor bury Shakespeare but instead to look him in the eye and reckon with the discomforts of his plays, playhouses and society. In inviting new perspectives and interpretations, we may yet prolong and enrich his extraordinary legacy.

So enlightening!

Thank you for your work! As a Black man, new to Shakespeare, your book & voice, has greatly improved my understanding & enjoyment of The Great White Bard. Your interview on the Letter and Politics Podcast was how came to know your work. Great interview!

Some Things Don't Change

I am visually impaired. I loved for this book on BARD, a Library of Congress reading service for the visually impaired. I looked at the audio book section of Libby and it was not available there. I finally found it in Audible. Though I have not read Shakespeare since high school, I was intrigued with the topic. After reading the book, I do not understand why it is not more widely available. The author was very knowledgeable, interesting, and clear. It was very readable. Unfortunately, the book points to little improvement in race relations in the past 400 years and more. I do take issue with the book title. If I had not seen the subtitle, I would not have gotten near to the book. When I saw the title, I thought it was a MAGA author trying to reclaim the Great White Bard as belonging to them alone.("none of this 'woke' stuff with our Shakespeare"). They do not know how much in the dark they are.