Shakespeare and Virtue : A Handbook

These thirty-eight short essays show how Shakespearean drama stages virtue as a capacity for connection within and across distinct environments of belonging. Individual virtues such as hospitality, prudence, wit, and trust enable pluralism while asserting core commitments, channelling strength and yearning into the courage to be seen and heard.

This volume maps Shakespearean virtue in all its plasticity and variety, providing thirty-eight succinct, wide-ranging essays that reveal a breadth and diversity exceeding any given morality or code of behaviour. Clearly explaining key concepts in the history of ethics and in classical, theological, and global virtue traditions, the collection reveals their presence in the works of Shakespeare in interpersonal, civic, and ecological scenes of action. Paying close attention to individual identity and social environment, chapters also consider how the virtuous horizons broached in Shakespearean drama have been tested anew by the plays' global travels and fresh encounters with different traditions. Including sections on global wisdom, performance and pedagogy, this handbook affirms virtue as a resource for humanistic education and the building of human capacity.