Shakespeare, Sympathy, and Prejudice

Speaker: Marianne Novy
Discussant: Aparna Lanjewar

November 17, 2004 | 6.30 pm
Little Theatre, National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai

There is a long tradition of thinking of Shakespeare’s plays as showing universal sympathy. But his plays have also been read as exemplifying biases of his culture-sometimes with the claim that nobody in his time held the sympathetic views the other tradition credits him with. The talk will show, from other authors, that concepts such as religious freedom and equality for women were thinkable in Shakespeare’s time, even if valuing them was a minority view. The talk will demonstrate the interplay between sympathy and prejudice in Shakespeare’s plays with regard to such examples as The Merchant of Venice and Othello.