Reading Machiavelli and Macbeth … Twice!

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Shakespeare’s Macbeth is sometimes read as a rebuttal of Machiavelli’s Prince. We’ll explore this notion by using the strategy laid out in Mortimer Adler’s classic How to Read a Book, to read each work twice, once quickly to get an overview and then again more slowly to figure out the details. Along the way, we’ll pay careful attention to the literary, philosophical, and political aspects of each classic work as well as the relationships between the two.

Texts
  • Machiavelli, The Prince
  • Shakespeare, Macbeth
  • Adler and Van Doren, How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide
    to Intelligent Reading [OPTIONAL]
TAUGHT: SPRING 2024