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Shakespeare the Thinker

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In this delightful book, Shakespeare the Thinker, A. D. Nuttall seeks to defend the great playwright against those who view him as just a product of his time (a view that is a strong form of Historicism). I'm a huge fan of Stephen Greenblatt, who wrote the terrific biography Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, so I was glad that Nuttall did not disagree with the nuanced New Historicism of Greenblatt and Pierre Bourdieu. Rather he agrees with them that Shakespeare interacted or "negotiated" with his milieu in a complex way, and that the "causation [was] a two-way street." Nuttall goes even further, asserting that "although knowledge of the historical genesis can on occasion illuminate a given work, the greater part of the artistic achievement of our best playwright is _internally_ generated" and that "[i]t is the product, not of his time, but of his own, unresting, creative intelligence."

Shakespeare the Thinker takes the form of a well-integrated commentary on the plays--almost too well integrated, as it is hard to find discussion of a particular play just by thumbing through the book. Several plays are discussed in each chapter, which the skimpy table of contents doesn't mention (my only real gripe with the book). In a way, this is good, because much is gained by reading the book, or at least a chapter, straight through. For instance, Romeo and Juliet is followed by A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Nuttall examines some common themes and how interpretation depends on which play one believes was written first.

Nuttall's new book probably won't replace Marjorie Garber's Shakespeare After All, but will complement it. His synthesis provides a nice counterpoint to her fine-grained analysis; and his (sometimes elliptical) engagement with other critical works, to her careful culling of observations from such works.

Nuttall's writing is enjoyable, sprinkled with insightful references to modern pop culture--for example, Ian McEwan's Atonement, Wife Swap, Goodfellas, and Star Trek! He takes delight in language (and not just Shakespeare's), like when he's describing Katherina's response to Petruchio in the sun-moon exchange: "Turning his non-committal `say' into `know' exposes the lunacy of all this moonshine with solar clarity."

What shines through, most of all, is Nuttall's admiration of Shakespeare's intellect, encapsulated in his "law": "Whatever you think of, Shakespeare will have thought of first." Fellow admirers and students of the playwright will enjoy this excellent book.

Here is an expanded table of contents:
Ch. 1. To the Death of Marlowe
p. 25: Henry VI, parts 1-3
45: Richard III
56: The Comedy of Errors
63: Two Gentlemen of Verona
70: The Taming of the Shrew
Comparison of Shakespeare and Marlowe.

2. Learning Not to Run
87: Love's Labour's Lost (preceded by brief discussion of Titus Andronicus)
99: Romeo and Juliet
119: A Midsummer Night's Dream

3. The Major Histories
133: Richard II
150: Henry IV, parts 1 and 2; Henry V

4. Stoics and Sceptics
171: Julius Caesar
192: Hamlet
205: Troilus and Cressida

5. Strong Women, Weaker Men
221: Much Ado about Nothing
226: As You Like It
239: Twelfth Night
247: All's Well That Ends Well

6. The Moralist
255: The Merchant of Venice
262: Measure for Measure

7. How Character May Be Formed
277: Othello
284: Macbeth
290: Coriolanus

8. Shrinking and Growing
300: King Lear
312: Timon of Athens
321: Antony and Cleopatra

9. The Last Plays
333: Pericles and Cymbeline
345: The Winter's Tale
360: The Tempest

Nuttall who recently passed away was considered by his colleagues one of the great Shakespeare scholars of our time. I have read at least two reviews praising this book in the highest terms possible.
Thus to my own surprise and slight disappointment I did not find myself enjoying the book as much as I had hoped.
There are a couple of reasons for this. The title suggests that we are going to understand far more deeply, and in something like a systematic way that which Shakespeare thought on the major issues of life.
This is not exactly what happens. Nuttall continually stresses Shakespeare's extraordinary intelligence but he never really develops lines of thought in a rich and complicated way. What he does is 'read the plays' often by seeing how they grow out of each other. He also in doing this includes a lot of extraneous information often supplying short - summaries of concepts which in many cases it might be assumed the reader of his book would have a knowledge of.
The writing itself somehow does not flow, and feels to me ' broken up' shifting attention needlessly in a less than coherent way.
But the writing does contain an enormous knowledge about Shakespeare. It too reveals an encylopediac knowledge of scholarly disputes which often to the general reader seem less than interesting.
Nuttall does make a strong case for his own conception of Shakespeare as an enormously intelligent thinker, who uses a variety of literary techniques to hide himself and his own position on the question at hand. Shakespeare's long- noted multi- sidedeness, his ability to think sympathetically into and out of the positions of diverse and contradictory characters is also amply illustrated. Nuttall has a wonderful feeling for the most remarkable passages in Shakespeare, and in fact for me the most enjoyable part of the work was confronting and reading again, for instance , what Nuttall considers the greatest speech in all Literature, Antony's funeral oration for Ceasar in 'Julius Caaesar' or Gaunt's sad lament on the decline of the England he has known.
I believe that there is much to learn for all lovers of Shakespeare in this work.
But the kind of new depth in understanding which came with reading the great critics like Coleridge and A.C. Bradley I , perhaps mistakenly, did not find in this work.

What makes this book especially valuable to me is that A.D. Nuttall brought not only a lifetime of reading and discussion of the plays, but a lifetime of seeing them performed.

This book has already proven to be an excellent companion when considering a specific play (using the Index helped), especially before and after seeing a new production. The contexts and meanings of the histories so remote in time and place are especially useful.

Nuttall writes with fearless precision that honors the best academic standards, yet in an almost conversational style. He writes about nearly all the plays, and his approach is variously appropriate to that particular play as well as its relationship to the others, to its "type," to Shakespeare's times and what we know about him. He does not shrink from the issues which certain plays raise for 21st century audiences: the role of women within marriage in "The Taming of the Shrew", for example. Other commentators may suggest that Kate's submission is meant ironically, but Nuttall does not take that easy escape.

I'm not a Shakespeare scholar, and I don't agree with all of Nuttall's interpretations, but that's the joy of Shakespeare--the dialogue with the plays can be endless. For reference and for reading, I will be returning to "Shakespeare the Thinker."

After reading this excellent book, my first thought was one of admiration for Shakespeare that he can provide so much interesting material for so many. Nuttall by no means exhausted the thematic possibilities of any of the plays but found very interesting questions in all of them. But actually not everyone who writes about Shakespeare writes interesting or memorable stuff, it takes what actually is a rare combination of good education, common sense and an open, alive mind. So even though there is an astounding amount of insight in the plays, not every commentator derives and gives us something of value.

I didn't agree with all his points but they are all honest questions: not self-serving and very little arguing with his colleagues. The question of The Tempest and nihilism is quite provocative. I suppose in the way that Buddhism is nihilistic, nihilism leading to transcendent joy, yes, he's right. Well, you'll read it and decide for yourself.

He writes in the Coda: "The universe is infinitely recessive to the understanding. It will not provide the thing that philosophers cannot help pursuing: the Answer." This is a very good formulation of our situation: we can't help wanting to have the conclusive view - and in fact we can't help assuming at any particular moment that we've got it already. It's natural to try to establish equilibrium. Still, for us, the truth of things comes as gnawing doubt, as a question. It's not truth but it's the accepting to entertain an opposing view, sensation, fact or feeling.

These are essays provoked by long acquaintance with Shakespeare, Plato and Western thought in general. It's not an introduction to Shakespeare. It's really only for people who love these plays.

That Harold Bloom sees A.D. Nuttall as his hero should be a tip-off to potential buyers of this book: it is not one for the average reader (like me).

There is no doubt that the author is a scholar of the first rank. However, this book is written for his fellow scholars and those intense amateurs who have a good existing command over the full breadth of William Shakespeare's many plays.

I was disappointed since the title seems to indicate there would be a more overt and accessible discussion of the thought patterns of the great playwright. Instead I entered a great forest, which as Professor Nuttall notes, "is a place to get lost in."

Fantastic read. Focuses on 12-15 of the plays. Couldn't put this down. Highly recommended.