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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
C-sections, Prodigal sons, Ambition: Read This Book,
By A Customer
This review is from: Shakespeare and the Hazards of Ambition (Hardcover)
With his sword, Macbeth hacks a passage through the enemy and unseams the traitor Macdonwald from the nave to the chops. He emerges from the battle like a man newborn (but into what?) and gets a new title: Thane of Cawdor. In *Coriolanus* Caius Martius runs through the gates ("gates" are a familiar Renaissance term for female genitalia) of Corioles, emerges very bloody and very triumphant and gets a new name: Coriolanus. Thus, goes Watson's provocative and compelling argument, both men cut themselves off from family names and through the violent action reminiscent of a self-inflicted C-section (remember Macbeth's hacking away at that fleshly passage) make themselves anew. Problems follow. Not merely because these men are ambitious, but because, as endless numbers of Elizabethan prodigal son tales point out (Watson has really done his research), you just can't get away from family. You're linked whether or not you like it, and, for that matter, whether or not you're a tragic hero or a college student who has to go home for Thanksgiving. Watson deals with other plays, but his treatment of these is most compelling and far more subtle than I can indicate here. This book won a prize when it came out: best book produced by Harvard University Press. The prize is well-deserved. Having read *Shakespeare and the Hazards of Ambition*, I have never been able to teach these plays in the same way again. This book almost lets the reader see too much -- it gives me the shivers. And it belongs on every serious scholar's shelf.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Read this book,
By A Customer
This review is from: Shakespeare and the Hazards of Ambition (Hardcover)
Rob Watson is probably the greatest mind in America. There is very little else I can say
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