Shakespeare and Wisdom
Ecumenical, Ecological and Ethical Horizons
Published on 30. April 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
400 pages
978-1-3995-1657-0 (ISBN)
Description
This volume interweaves Shakespeare's wisdom with ancient spiritual practices and the insights of a post-secular age in order to explore a transhistorical space of sapient knowing and living. Pursuing the delight of heart, soul and understanding in the synaesthetic experience of theatre and the meditative space of poetry, sapiential Shakespeare explores knowledge, love, beauty, nature, will and power in conversation with multiple wisdom traditions, tapping into a global sensus communis rooted in energetic knowing-with. This collection of essays begins in the Mediterranean with classical, biblical and Egyptian wisdom, moves to the East to consider Sufi and Buddhist wisdom and then turns to the West to reflect on Indigenous science and ways of knowing. Sharing a common root in oikos, meaning home, the ecumenical and the ecological converge in an embodied ethics and politics of care premised in an ecological rather than ego-logical way of being.
Reviews / Votes
This collection views Shakespeare as a curate of wisdom traditions. Inviting and yet unapologetic, its authors reimagine Shakespeare criticism as an ecumenical conversation about the art of living held between ancient voices and today's post-secular age. It is a book that warrants not responding to but thinking with. -- Matthew J. Smith, Hildegard CollegeMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
25 black and white illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 155 mm
Width: 234 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
600 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-3995-1657-0 (9781399516570)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Unhae Park Langis is a humanist-activist, a stitcher of text and textile, and a volunteer for Citizens' Climate Lobby. A former teacher of twenty years, she is the author of Passion, Prudence, and Virtue in Shakespearean Drama (2011) and numerous essays in ethical criticism in collections and journals including Shakespeare Studies, EMLS, Upstart Crow, and Literature Compass. As a research fellow at the New Swan Shakespeare Center, University of California, Irvine, Langis has evolved from a virtue to a multi-perspectival wisdom hermeneutic through Stoic, Buddhist and Sufi readings of Shakespeare in several collections including this present volume. Julia Reinhard Lupton is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of California, Irvine. She is the author or co-author of five books, including Shakespeare Dwelling: Designs for the Theater of Life (2018), Thinking with Shakespeare (2015), and Citizen-Saints (2012). She has edited or co-edited many volumes and special issues, including Shakespeare and Virtue: A Handbook (with Donovan Sherman), and Shakespeare's Virtuous Theatre: Power, Capacity, and the Good (with Kent Lehnhof and Carolyn Sale), Shakespeare and Hospitality (with David Goldstein), and Face to Face with Shakespeare (with Matthew Smith). She is a former Guggenheim Fellow and a former Trustee of the Shakespeare Association of America.
Content
List of lllustrations
Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction
Unhae Park Langis and Julia Reinhard Lupton
I. Shakespeare and the Oikumene
1. Wisdom Ecology: Mapping the Ancient Wisdom World into the Future
Unhae Park Langis
2. Sophia on the Cydnus: 'Antony and Cleopatra' as Wisdom Literature
Julia Reinhard Lupton
3. 'Like prayers divine': Shakespeare's Sonnets as Spiritual Exercise
Sean Keilen
4. Morality on Stage: Free Will, Counsel and Self-Counsel in Shakespeare and Glissenti
Eugenio Refini?
II. Oikeiosis and Ecology
5. Jaques the Pythagorean: Ecognosis and Pythagorean Wisdom Literature in 'As You Like It'
Todd Borlik?
6. Sovereign Care and Natural Goodness: Stoic Wisdom in 'The Winter's Tale'
Benjamin Parris
III. A Kinaesthetic Ethics of the Heart-Mind?
7. No Magistrate, No Engine, No Oil: 'Calvin's Case' (1608) and the Kinaesthetic Wisdom of 'The Tempest'
Carolyn Sale
8. Prajnaparamita and the Buddhist Path of Wisdom in 'King Lear'
Marguerite A. Tassi
9. Loving 'Not Wisely But Too Well': Race, Religion and Sufi Theoeroticism in 'Othello'
Unhae Park Langis
IV. Grace-Notes of Creative Wisdom
10. Holding a Space for Possibility: A Conversation with Madeline Sayet
11. Wisdom and Welcome in Madeline Sayet's 'Where We Belong'
Robin Alfriend Kello
12. 'wetos, vitus, vecchia', vita, Jos CharlesThe Buddha and the Bard: On Shakespeare and Mindfulness
Lauren Shufran
Afterword Shakespeare's Open O: Sounding Global Wisdoms into the Future
Joan Pong Linton
Notes on Contributors
Works Cited
Index
Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction
Unhae Park Langis and Julia Reinhard Lupton
I. Shakespeare and the Oikumene
1. Wisdom Ecology: Mapping the Ancient Wisdom World into the Future
Unhae Park Langis
2. Sophia on the Cydnus: 'Antony and Cleopatra' as Wisdom Literature
Julia Reinhard Lupton
3. 'Like prayers divine': Shakespeare's Sonnets as Spiritual Exercise
Sean Keilen
4. Morality on Stage: Free Will, Counsel and Self-Counsel in Shakespeare and Glissenti
Eugenio Refini?
II. Oikeiosis and Ecology
5. Jaques the Pythagorean: Ecognosis and Pythagorean Wisdom Literature in 'As You Like It'
Todd Borlik?
6. Sovereign Care and Natural Goodness: Stoic Wisdom in 'The Winter's Tale'
Benjamin Parris
III. A Kinaesthetic Ethics of the Heart-Mind?
7. No Magistrate, No Engine, No Oil: 'Calvin's Case' (1608) and the Kinaesthetic Wisdom of 'The Tempest'
Carolyn Sale
8. Prajnaparamita and the Buddhist Path of Wisdom in 'King Lear'
Marguerite A. Tassi
9. Loving 'Not Wisely But Too Well': Race, Religion and Sufi Theoeroticism in 'Othello'
Unhae Park Langis
IV. Grace-Notes of Creative Wisdom
10. Holding a Space for Possibility: A Conversation with Madeline Sayet
11. Wisdom and Welcome in Madeline Sayet's 'Where We Belong'
Robin Alfriend Kello
12. 'wetos, vitus, vecchia', vita, Jos CharlesThe Buddha and the Bard: On Shakespeare and Mindfulness
Lauren Shufran
Afterword Shakespeare's Open O: Sounding Global Wisdoms into the Future
Joan Pong Linton
Notes on Contributors
Works Cited
Index