With an introduction by R.W. Desai

Papers presented at the International Seminar on the Intellectual Background of Shakespeare, held at Kurukshetra in October 2006.
An important collection of insightful articles, Shekespeare's Intellectual Background shows how, contrary to Ben Jonson's belief that Shakespeare knew 'small Latine and less Greeke', the Bard of Stratford embodied in his work the entire wealth of wisdo drawn from the Greek , Roman and Medieval philosophic sources. As has been repeatedly emphasized by numerous critics, from olden times to the present, Shakespeare belongs not to the Elizabethan age alone but to all ages. Bringing together international scholarship on Shakespeare from England, America, Canada and Australia, the editor has included in this volume a wide variety of contemporary critical approaches to the subject.
The papers in the later part of the present volume are addressed to aspects of Shakespeare's modernity and postmodernity, showing that the Bard's relevance remains as pertinent to our age as it has been to previous ages. eminent Shakespeare scholars like Lloyd Davis, John W. Mahon, R.W. Desai, Yoshiko Kawachi and Peter Holbrook, show how the world's greatest dramatist interpreted and deployed his reading of various other forms of intellectual acquisition in the large body of his plays. For every library and individual interested in Shakespeare, this book is an invaluable addition.