On the Threshold - (Edinburgh Critical Studies in Shakespeare and Philosophy) by Sophie E Battell

About the Book

The first book-length study of hospitality in Shakespeare.

Book Synopsis

In this critical analysis, Sophie E. Battell examines hospitality in Shakespeare's plays. By drawing on literary theory, modern philosophy, and anthropology as well as early modern scientific and religious texts, the book advances our understanding of Shakespeare as a dramatist concerned with the ethical questions at stake in encounters between guests and hosts of various kinds.
The close readings and scholarly interventions presented here reconceive the plays in terms of a poetics of hospitality while arguing for an expansive, far-reaching vision of what it means to be open to the world and welcoming of others. Moving from the levels of subjectivity, the body, and the senses to architecture, economics, legal discourse, and the natural environment, On the Threshold not only makes important contributions to Shakespeare studies but forges new connections between Renaissance literary scholarship and contemporary debates on the politics of migrants and refugees.

From the Back Cover

Renews our understanding of Shakespeare through an interdisciplinary focus on hospitality In this critical analysis, Sophie E. Battell examines hospitality in Shakespeare's plays. By drawing on literary theory, modern philosophy and anthropology, as well as early modern scientific and religious texts, the book advances our understanding of Shakespeare as a dramatist concerned with the ethical questions at stake in encounters between guests and hosts of various kinds. The close readings and scholarly interventions presented here reconceive Shakespeare's plays in terms of a poetics of hospitality while arguing for an expansive, far-reaching vision of what it means to be open to the world and welcoming of others. Moving from the levels of subjectivity, the body and the senses to architecture, economics, legal discourse and the natural environment, On the Threshold not only makes important contributions to Shakespeare studies but forges new connections between Renaissance literary scholarship and contemporary debates on the politics of migrants and refugees. Sophie E. Battell is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Zurich.

Review Quotes

A trailblazing intervention in the burgeoning field of hospitality studies, which transforms our understanding of the plays of Shakespeare by revealing the complex concern with the welcoming of strangers that lies at the heart of their vision and brings them urgently alive for us today.--Kiernan Ryan, Royal Holloway, University of London

Sophie E. Battell's remarkable first book shifts our attention from the outsider as an object for study, and from Shakespeare's historical contexts. Instead, this book offers refreshing insights into the troubled relation between host and guest in Shakespeare's works as enlightened by continental philosophy. [...] Seasoned by further discussion, one cannot suggest this monograph is anything but a landmark publication.--Alexander Thom, University of Leeds "Shakespeare"

This brilliant and urgent new book draws hospitality beyond the household, to consider the entertaining of refugees, the detention of migrants, and the healing power of stranger-love. Displaced by shipwreck, exile and abandonment, Shakespeare's guests and hosts explore the trust required to build a just and welcoming polity.--Julia Reinhard Lupton, University of California, Irvine

About the Author

Sophie E. Battell is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Zurich.