Shakespeare and the Just War Tradition

Brought to light in this study is a connection between the treatment of war in Shakespeare's plays and the issue of the 'just war', which loomed large both in religious and in lay treatises of Shakespeare's time. The book re-reads Shakespeare's representations of war in light of both the changing historical and political contexts in which they were produced and of Shakespeare's possible connection with the culture and ideology of the European just war tradition. But to discuss Shakespeare's representations of war means, for Pugliatti, not simply to examine his work from a literary point of view or to historicize those representations in connection with the discourses (and the practice) of war which were produced in his time; it also means to consider or re-consider present-day debates for or against war and the kind of war ideology which is trying to assert itself in our time in light of the tradition which shaped those discourses and representations and which still substantiates our 'moral' view of war. Introduction; Part 1: Ethics and Warfare: The Just War Tradition in Europe Christianity and the ethics of warfare; The lay tradition; The pacifist tradition. Part 2: Theatres of War: Offstage and Onstage Elizabetha triumphans; Marlowe et alii; Closer to Shakespeare. Part 3: Shakespeare on War and Peace The temper of war and peace; Ius ad bellum; Ius in bello. Part 4: Henry V and the Wars of Our Time The just war of Henry V; Works cited; Index. As an `innocent', which is to say non-specialist, reader of Shakespeare, I knew that one could find everything in his work, as in the Bible; what I had not imagined was that the Bard - what a devil of a man!-could also inspire one to reflect on a subject that so closely presses upon us today: the ethics of war. Paola Pugliatti's book, however, has obliged me to re-read him from this entirely new perspective.--Umberto Eco Ethics and warfare: the just war tradition in Europe Theatres of war in the 1590s: offstage and onstage Shakespeare on war and peace In god's name: Henry V and the wars of our time.