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Radical Shakespeare: Why do we get him so wrong?

By Pauline Kiernan

A timely study which restores the revolutionary message of Shakespeare's art.

History | Non fiction

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It’s time to re-think our attitude to Shakespeare.

Do the war leaders and reporters who carelessly reference Henry V to whip up patriotic fervour or justify military expansionism even read the play?

Almost always charged with anti-semitism, what happens when we look at Shakespeare’s original audience and how they would have responded to Shylock?

Who uses racist language in Othello? Does this make it a racist play?

Do his portrayals of women make him a misogynist?

Who are the baddies in Shakespeare's plays? How does the audience’s response to them, moment by moment, turn our moral compass this way and that?

Racist, anti-semitic, misogynistic, Tudor propagandist, nationalistic warmonger. It’s hard to find a writer who has attracted such a diverse array of abusive terms. Applying lazy and simplistic labels to Shakespeare’s plays is both intellectually sloppy and theatrically naive. We may not be able to recover the precise mind-set of his audience, but we can do him the courtesy of not wilfully misrepresenting what he wanted his dramas to do.

Radical Shakespeare: Why do we get him so wrong? is a powerfully argued exploration of the bard’s work. Based on decades of close study and research, Pauline F. Kiernan’s book shows that far from the equivocating conservative of popular myth, Shakespeare was a true progressive. But it is only by placing his work in its contemporary context that we can fully appreciate his commitment to reform and the subversive power of the theatre.

Book designs, cover and other images are for illustrative purposes and may differ from final design.

Support this project

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$35 + shipping

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Signed first edition paperback.

PLUS:

Ebook
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$125 + shipping

2 pledges

Shakespeare and Cocktails on the Rooftop

Join Pauline on the rooftop bar of The Hilton by the Tower of London for a cocktail and an intimate informal chat about Shakespeare's London and the Tower.
One cocktail included.
LIMITED TO 4.

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Pauline Kiernan

Pauline is a Shakespeare scholar, literary critic, awarded-winning playwright and screenwriter. She’s held lectureships and fellowships at the Universities of Oxford and Reading, is the author of the acclaimed Shakespeare’s Theory of Drama, Staging Shakespeare at the New Globe and Screenwriting They Can’t Resist.

She was appointed Leverhulme Research Fellow at Shakespeare’s Globe in its first six years, gives talks on Shakespeare around the world, and has written two stage plays about Shakespeare and the politics of his time: SEDITION is about the battle for control of the theatre between Shakespeare and Elizabeth I. Her latest play is HOMELESS: STATE OF THE NATION. 1602. 2022, which looks at the startlingly disturbing parallels between Shakespeare’s world and our world today.

Her best-selling Filthy Shakespeare, an Observer Book of the Year, has been republished in an e-book edition.
LAZY LABELS AND SLOPPY APPROACHES

Racist, anti-semitic, misogynistic, Tudor propagandist, nationalistic warmonger. It’s hard to find a writer who has provoked such a diverse number of abusive terms. Slapping lazy, simplistic labels on Shakespeare’s plays is an intellectually sloppy and theatrically naive way to approach them. We cannot recover the mind-set of his audiences but we can do the playwright the courtesy of trying to avoid misrepresenting what he was attempting his drama to do.

Here are a few sample excerpts from the book:

Racist?
Othello

The language of racist stereotypes in ‘Othello’ is spoken mainly by Iago and Roderigo. At the opening of the play, the audience is given a vivid portrait of the Moor by two characters: one a bitter disgruntled career soldier who hates his General, and a dumb, dissolute Venetian who is paying Iago to get him into the heroine’s bed.:

‘Thick lips’, ‘Even now, now, very now, an old black ram

Is tupping your white ewe.’ etc.

If that isn’t enough to set up in the audience some doubt as to the reliability of these characters, we are then made to watch the subject of their conversation appear, a rather impressive-looking figure whose words reflect his status as a commanding officer, and in language that can only be described as eloquence (we will watch this transformation of quiet dignity to uncontrollable, jealous rage, which makes this early appearance so significant)

RODERIGO

Signior, it is the Moor.

BRABANTIO

Down with him, thief!

They draw on both sides

IAGO

You, Roderigo! come, sir, I am for you.

OTHELLO

Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.

Good signior, you shall more command with years

Than with your weapons.

It’s clear, within a matter of minutes, that we’ve been given two conflicting views of Othello’s character. Racist language is in the play, but it is spoken by dramatic characters, not its author. Shakespeare carefully constructs his work to affect us moment by moment, manipulating our response, turning our moral compass this way and that.

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Pauline Kiernan has written 2 private updates. You can pledge to get access to them all.

30th May 2023 Shakespeare on Families

Work in progress:

After writing on his mothers (or lack of them), am now exploring what he does with the family as a site of instability.

- Olga Knipper as Gertrude, Vasili Kachalov as Hamlet. 1911. Photographer unknown.

(Knipper was married to Chekhov).

30th May 2023 Ingmar Bergman's Hamlet on Stage

Many reasons to love Ingmar Bergman's stage production of 'Hamlet' which I saw at the NT in 1987 in Swedish with no subtitles - it worked.

A major one: Ophelia became a more central character than is usually the case. She was on the stage all the time, even in the scenes in which she had no speaking part, a dumbstruck, terrified witness to the action. It was Bergman's vision of the young woman's…

30th May 2023 400 YEARS BEFORE FREUD, SHAKESPEARE WROTE THIS:

400 years before Freud, this:

Give me another horse: bind up my wounds.

Have mercy, Jesu!--Soft! I did but dream.

O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!

The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight.

Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.

What do I fear? myself? there's none else by:

Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I.

Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am:

Then fly…

17th May 2023 NOW on YouTube, Shakespeare's Mothers.

Zoom Panel Discussion with me and two others

it's really worth a watch

12th May 2023 SEDITION How did S get away with treason?

My long form article on the true story of Shakespeare's Richard II, published yesterday in the excellent PERPECTIVE Magazine.

11th May 2023 SUNDAY 14 MAY SHAKESPEARE'S MOTHERS time tbc

Hello to you all.

SUNDAY 14 MAY 2023 (which is Mothers Day in the USA)

I'll be posting the time of day when it's confirmed, so please don't forget to look out for the update on the time which I'll be posting here.

Really excited to talk about Shakespeare's Mothers on this Zoom on SUNDAY 14 MAY 2023 (time tbc)

Join our discussion on New York Shakespeare's instagram. I…

28th April 2023 Shakespeare on Men

A misogynist?

"Who would believe thee, Isabel?"

Measure for Measure: Shakespeare on men #- centuries before # metoo

- Andrea Riseborough and Richard Dormerr. Dir. Peter Hall.

24th April 2023 He loves blind-siding us in just about every play.

A LITTLE TOUCH OF SHAKESPEARE

MAKES THE WHOLE WORLD KIN.

And from out of nowhere, a character we've been encouraged to think is a stupid fool, makes us sit up:

"I was adored once, too."

How did this dramatist ALWAYS show us what it is to be human?

After more than 60 years in intimate relationship with him, I still do not know.

24th April 2023 A Little Touch of Shakespeare Makes the Whole World Kin

The thing we really need to know on April 23 isALittle why he’s still drawing millions of actors, directors and theatre fans, and offering a source of heart-stopping astonishment almost all my life, from when my big sister, needing an audience for rehearsing a speech for a school recital, introduced a wide-eyed 5-year-old to the strange, wondrous-sounding language of a ham omelette mysteriously troubled…

19th April 2023 Shakespeare and anachronisms!

I've just quoted Spike Milligan in my chapter about Shakespeare's brilliantly clever use of anachronisms (clock in Julius Caesar etc).

“I thought I'd begin by reading a poem by Shakespeare, but then I thought, why should I? He never reads any of mine.”

I reckon WS would love this, don't you?

28th January 2023 Shakespeare and Grief

Another powerful reason why I'm publishing SHAKESPEARE: How do we get him so wrong?

Scriptwriter Ben Elton who made the mistake of putting these words:

“I’VE LIVED SO LONG IN IMAGINARY WORLDS, I THINK I’VE LOST SIGHT OF WHAT IS REAL”

into the mouth belonging to a fictional Shakespeare in the dire film, All is True. I mean, has Elton given more than a cursory glance at the dramatist's way…

17th December 2022 Shakespeare quotes

Favourite quotes in Shakespeare? And please say why!

1st November 2022 One of the most dramatically effective tragedies in world drama.

I explore how Shakespeare's supreme dramatic power works its magic in the famous Temptation scenes in my book.

Meanwhile:

The first recorded performance of Othello, the Moor of Venice, was on Hallowmas Day, November 1, 1604

This, considered one of the most dramatically effective tragedies in world drama, begins with a small-minded, middle-aged, disgruntled soldier giving vent to petty grievances…

24th October 2022 Oh no.
These people are helping to fund Radical Shakespeare: Why do we get him so wrong?.

Luke O'Doherty

Donald Boyd

John Peter Maughan

Tom Purnell

Warren Gilchrist

Jona Oberski

Keith Gregory

Donald Meyer

Christian Roulleau

Cecilia Blanche

Stephen Myrick

Kerrie Roberts

Tony Tambasco

Livia Clandorf

Mike Delaney

Emily Carding

tim west

Andrew Hingston

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Felicity dean

Angela France

John Knowles

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Radical Shakespeare: Why do we get him so wrong?

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