Review by Choice Review
The Great White Bard sets itself a difficult task as it mediates between the recondite world of Shakespeare studies and the popular zeal for his plays. The book's central question is both timely and important: Can one acknowledge Shakespeare's troubling use of racialized language but still love his works? Cooper argues in the affirmative, but points out that doing so requires some effort on the reader's part. Cooper's historically informed analyses of Shakespeare's plays are powerful models of how to interrogate them with an eye that is both loving and critical. She does not, however, spend much time explaining or defending her theoretical models, so the book will be most useful for those already conversant, at least in passing, with recent trends in conversations surrounding race. Those deeply invested in Shakespeare criticism may find themselves wanting deeper discussions of language or history in some chapters. Overall, though, The Great White Bard offers a robust, thoughtful approach to thinking about race in Shakespeare's plays. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. --Benjamin Daniel Weber, Wheaton College (IL)
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Scholars have been writing about race, antisemitism, anti-Blackness, and who can and can't play roles in Shakespeare's works for decades, though this scholarship has only recently gained the traction it deserves. Karim-Cooper, director of education at Shakespeare's Globe in London, created the Shakespeare and Race Festival in 2018 to elevate the views of people of color on Shakespeare's works. This text is essential to understanding the concept of racial identities in Shakespeare's era, his inclusion of nonwhite and non-Christian characters, and the cultural nostalgia around his work. The Eurocentric view that glamorizes Elizabethan England and whitewashes the history of the era still prevails. The author provides readers with tools to deconstruct this and to understand racist reactions to recasting traditionally white roles, such as Richard III, with actors of color. She also reminds readers that white actors performing in blackface goes back much further than Sir Laurence Olivier, that debates over Cleopatra and who can portray her also go back centuries, and so much more. The Great White Bard is jam-packed with essential questions about Shakespeare's work and includes perspectives that are often ignored. Highly recommended for both academic and public libraries.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this electrifying study, Karim-Cooper (The Hand on the Shakespearean Stage), a literature professor at King's College London, analyzes the treatment of race in Shakespeare's plays, discussing how these depictions have contributed to the development of racial categories and been co-opted for political ends. According to the author, the villainous depiction of Aaron the Moor in Titus Andronicus equated the character's Blackness with wickedness, while references to Ethiopians in Romeo and Juliet are meant to contrast them with Juliet's fair "complexion and virtue." Karim-Cooper criticizes 18th-century scholars who transformed Shakespeare into a "quasi-religious figure" by holding up his works as exemplars of white "English exceptionalism" to justify Britain's imperial ambitions. Instead, she argues, the complicated depictions of nonwhite characters in such plays as Antony and Cleopatra and Othello should be seen as opportunities to "interrogate the systems of power" that the characters inhabit. For example, she suggests that The Tempest's depiction of Prospero as a cruel colonizer and his Indigenous slave Caliban as an attempted rapist "does not allow us to empathise exclusively with either." The rigorous and nuanced analysis stimulates, and Karim-Cooper's evenhanded approach refuses to excuse Shakespeare's racism while insisting that his plays still have much to offer modern audiences. This is a vital contribution to the shelf on Shakespeare. (Aug.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A scholar of Shakespeare comes not to praise him nor to bury him, but instead to complicate him. At a time when the reverence historically shown to dead White men is being questioned, is the Bard of Avon still relevant? Yes, answers Karim-Cooper, who should know: She teaches Shakespeare at King's College London and serves as director of education at the Globe Theatre. She's also a Pakistani American woman who fell for Shakespeare in high school, recognizing in Romeo and Juliet "the archetypal South Asian teenage experience." Arguing that if "instead of worshipping his words, we contend with them," she assures modern-day readers and theatergoers that they will find much of relevance to today's world in Shakespeare. Karim-Cooper begins with a fascinating survey of how Shakespeare has become a "cult figure and secular god," in large part due to an Enlightenment campaign to cultivate "a unique brand of English white superiority." The author devotes the bulk of her text to exegeses of what she terms his "race plays": Titus Andronicus, Antony and Cleopatra, Othello, The Merchant of Venice, and The Tempest. In these passages, she discusses how Elizabethans might have understood race in words such as barbarous and fair and ruminates on how productions through history have been cast and staged. Karim-Cooper frequently brings modern critical theory to bear, leaning on misogynoir, for instance, to explore the racial construction of Cleopatra in Shakespeare's time and text--a construction not acknowledged in the casting of British productions until the 1990s. She is careful to remind readers that Shakespeare's England was not an all-White one, bolstering her assertion that Shakespeare "explores different modes of racial formation" even in plays not commonly associated with race. The author is most convincing when she insists that readers consider "how students…or actors of colour…can get to grips with the excessively valued and quite sublime poetry that just happens to, at times, diminish their own bodies." Illuminating both words and performance--an essential addition to Shakespeare studies. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
