Shakespeare's Scholars: Three Lessons from the Liberal Arts

What Love’s Labor’s Lost, Hamlet, and The Tempest can teach us about discovery, growth, and changeShakespeare was a keen and discerning reader who was mocked by writers who, unlike him, had been to university-so it’s not surprising that his portrait of scholarly life is critical.As Sean Keilen shows in this engaging book, Shakespeare’s scholars lack humility, shun wisdom, underestimate people who are not scholars, and, by keeping aloof from society, fail to see themselves clearly.In examining Shakespeare’s scholars, Keilen finds parallels in the modern academy. Keilen examines three plays with scholars as protagonists, tracing these characters’ arduous paths to self-knowledge and meaningful connection with others.In Love’s Labor’s Lost, four noblemen, seeking fame for knowledge and virtue, establish an academy-but the real purpose of their studies is to exclude women, scorn men of inferior standing, and treat each other with hostility.In Hamlet, the prodigiously intelligent Prince of D