Stephen Greenblatt, _Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics_

THE SUBTITLE MAY as well have been "Shakespeare on Trump." Even though the current POTUS is not even mentioned once, this is a book called forth by the urgencies of the hour. Greenblatt goes through the plays and turns up example after example of power illegitimately gained and grievously abused, and in each case finds one or more eerie similarities to He Who Is Not To Be Named.

For instance, Jack Cade, whose brief career as leader of a peasant uprising is represented in 2 Henry VI:

Cade himself, for all we know, may think that what he is so obviously making up as he goes along will actually come to pass. Drawing on an indifference to the truth, shamelessness, and hyperinflated self-confidence, the loudmouthed demagogue is entering a fantasyland--"When I am king, as king I will be"--and he invites his listeners to enter the same magical space with him. (38)

Or (obviously) Richard III, who gets three chapters:

He is pathologically narcissistic and supremely arrogant. He has a grotesque sense of entitlement, never doubting that he can do whatever he chooses. He loves to bark orders and to watch underlings scurry to carry them out. He expects absolute loyalty, but is incapable of gratitude. The feelings of others mean nothing to him. He has no natural grace, no sense of shared humanity, no decency.
   He is not merely indifferent to the law; he hates it and takes pleasure in breaking it. He hates it because it gets in his way and because it stands for a notion of public good that he holds in contempt. (53)

Or Leontes from The Winter's Tale:

That is part of the point: once the state is in the hands of an unstable, impulsive, and vindictive tyrant, there is almost nothing that the ordinary mechanisms of moderation can accomplish. Sensible advice falls on deaf ears; dignified demurrals are brushed aside; outspoken protests only seem to make matters worse. (131)

Even Coriolanus--who essentially, it seems to me, has nothing important in common with Trump--gets pulled into the book for his "overgrown child's narcissism, insecurity, cruelty, and folly, all unchecked by any adult's supervision and restraint," even though Trump fluttered no dovecotes and has no aristocratic disdain for mixing with the masses. (By the way, this account of Coriolanus is the first I have come across with a charitable view of the tribunes.)

Good book--written in a bit of a rush, I guess, and slips into cliché and easy targets more often than Greenblatt's books normally do, but well worth reading. Hard to tell how interesting it will be when Trump is long gone, but we can be glad Greenblatt went to the trouble.

...I wonder if he thought of looking at the narrative poems as well? I'm thinking of The Rape of Lucrece, of course, given our chief executive's well-known grabby proclivities.