Serageldin Politics, Power and Principle

Insights from Shakespeare
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-977-795-489-1
Verlag: Aldar Almasriah Allubnaniah
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 144 Seiten

I am one of the many admirers of Shakespeare's genius. I have even written a book about his unique ability to remain relevant to our contemporary concerns. The work was titled The Modernity of Shakespeare1 and it was very well received, and even earned a very laudatory foreword by W ole Soyinka, Nobel laureate in Literature, and professor of English literature. So it is no surprise that when I founded the New Library of Alexandria in Egypt, I also organized an annual Shakespeare event - usually organized on the 23rd of April if at all possible - in which many eminent literary critics participated. And as we focused on the plays rather than the long poems or the sonnets, some actors and occasionally cinematographers also participated. Students from the departments of English in many universities across Egypt, also invariably participated. At that annual event I usually presented a special lecture on Shakespeare. This went on for almost 15 years.

Ismail Serageldin is the Co-Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center (NGIC). He was the Founding Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the New Library of Alexandria in Egypt (2001-2017). Before that he was the Vice-President of the World Bank (1993-2000) in charge of Environmentally Sustainable Development (ESD), and the Chairman of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). He served on many international committees and commissions, including serving as a member of the High Level group for the Alliance of Civilizations convened by the Secretary General of the United Nations (2006-2007). He was also a distinguished professor at Wageningen University and the College de France. He is a member of many Academies and serves on many commissions, boards, and advisory committees for academic, research, and NGO institutions. He has lectured widely and published more than 100 books and 500 articles. He has received many awards from many countries and has received more than 40 honorary doctorates from all over the world.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Serageldin, Ismail

Leseproben

INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND
By Ismail Serageldin July 2024 I am one of the many admirers of Shakespeare's genius. I have even written a book about his unique ability to remain relevant to our contemporary concerns. The work was titled The Modernity of Shakespeare1 and it was very well received, and even earned a very laudatory foreword by W ole Soyinka, Nobel laureate in Literature, and professor of English literature. So it is no surprise that when I founded the New Library of Alexandria in Egypt, I also organized an annual Shakespeare event - usually organized on the 23rd of April if at all possible - in which many eminent literary critics participated. And as we focused on the plays rather than the long poems or the sonnets, some actors and occasionally cinematographers also participated. Students from the departments of English in many universities across Egypt, also invariably participated. At that annual event I usually presented a special lecture on Shakespeare. This went on for almost 15 years. Looking 1 Ismail Serageldin, The Modernity of Shakespeare, Cairo, Egypt, and Washington, DC: Cairo University and The Center for the Global South, American University, Washington, DC, 1998. back at those many lectures that I delivered, and reflecting on the conditions of the world today, I decided to select three of these lectures to be reproduced in this publication. I believe that these three lectures together form a coherent argument about both the genius of Shakespeare and his protean imagination on one hand, and the political challenges that we face today in the 2020s, as well as our concerns about the quality of the political leadership in the world today, on the other hand. FIVE MAJOR OBSERVATIONS Five things stand out in all my readings of Shakespeare's plays, especially the tragedies. First, despite the genius of Shakespeare as a poet, the poetry is harnessed to support the drama of the play, and is not intended to show off poetic virtuosity by itself. Second: Shakespeare's characters are truly multifaceted, and his plays are multi-layered. These works are not simplistic interactions of cardboard, flat heroes and villains in a straightforward linear plot. Third: Many of the plays deliver profound insights into the character and motivation of political figures. He also provides insights about the political processes that rely on the manipulation of the masses; insights that remain relevant to our times. Fourth: Shakespeare wrote in dangerous times. He worked at a time when discussing the history of kings or taking sides in the big divides of the times (such as Catholicism versus Protestantism) was dangerous. He successfully skirted these viii issues and still managed to give us profound insights into the characters and into the complex political processes he described. Fifth: Shakespeare had to interact with two audiences, the highly educated elite of his time as well as the groundlings who were ordinary people who paid a penny apiece to stand in the theater and attend the play. It is a huge challenge to find both plot and language that would be attractive to both groups. Allow me in this introduction to elaborate briefly on each of these five observations, before I turn to the three lectures that are included in this book. First: Poetry to serve the drama rather than just to show off poetic virtuosity
In A Choice of Shakespeare's Verse2 Ted Hughes asserts that many speeches from the plays can be taken out of the dramatic context of the plays and can be appreciated and admired as a "stand alone" poem, and even gain in power by being released from the context of the dramatic action into a universal situation, for example Hughes cites this passage from Macbeth: To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, 2 See: A Choice of Shakespeare's Verse Selected with an introduction by Ted Hughes, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, NY l 971. This book, in its second edition, includes 218 selections from the plays, the sonnets and the long poems and a lengthy 40-page "note" and a brief new introduction (1991). ix To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an...