Stephen Greenblatt on his book Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics
Stephen Greenblatt\xa0is Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. He is the author of thirteen books, including\xa0The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve;\xa0The Swerve: How the World Became Modern; Shakespeare's Freedom; and Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare.\xa0He is General Editor of\xa0The Norton Anthology of English Literature\xa0and of\xa0The Norton Shakespeare,\xa0has edited seven collections of criticism, and is a founding editor of the journal\xa0Representations.\xa0His honors include the 2016 Holberg Prize from the Norwegian Parliament, the 2012 Pulitzer Prize and the 2011 National Book Award for\xa0The Swerve.\xa0
Among his named lecture series are the Adorno Lectures in Frankfurt, the University Lectures at Princeton, and the Clarendon Lectures at Oxford. He has held visiting professorships at universities in Beijing, Kyoto, London, Paris, Florence, Torino, Trieste, and Bologna, as well as the Renaissance residency at the American Academy in Rome.\xa0
We met at the the Brattleboro Literary Festival in Vermont to talk about his most recent book\xa0Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics, in which Donald Trump's name isn't mentioned once. I, however, make a point of mentioning it frequently.\xa0