798.5 Thinking Through Shakespeare (with David Womersley) | My Last Book with Ramie Targoff

In this episode of The History of Literature, host Jack Wilson interviews David Womersley, Thomas Wharton Professor of English Literature at Oxford, about his book *Thinking Through Shakespeare*. Womersley argues that Shakespeare remains enduringly relevant not because he offers definitive answers about human nature, but because he masterfully explores four perennial philosophical questions: identity, the tension between civilization and barbarism, the relationship between political power and religious authority, and the conflict between moral intuition and utilitarian expediency. He challenges the late 20th-century theoretical turn in literary studies that dismissed the idea of universal human nature, asserting instead that while human behavior varies across time and space, core human concerns—like love, power, justice, and moral ambiguity—remain constant. Womersley uses *King Lear* and *Measure for Measure* to illustrate how Shakespeare presents opposing moral frameworks without resolving them, allowing audiences to wrestle with the complexity of ethical dilemmas. He praises Shakespeare’s genius for avoiding dogma, calling it a form of intellectual freedom. The episode concludes with a reflective conversation with Ramie Targoff, who shares her choice for her last book: George Eliot’s *Middlemarch*, which she sees as a profound, compassionate, and endlessly revealing novel that grows with the reader across a lifetime. Together, the discussions affirm literature’s power not to provide answers, but to deepen our capacity for thoughtful, empathetic engagement with the human condition.