Introduction to a Symposium on David Lowenthal and Paul Cantor as Interpreters of Shakespeare

Abstract

This symposium honors the work of David Lowenthal (1923–2022) and Paul Cantor (1945–2022), prominent scholars of political philosophy and literature, who passed away within two months of each other in 2022. Lowenthal and Cantor belonged to a school of thought that regarded Shakespeare as a philosophical and political thinker in the classical tradition who was keenly attuned to the challenges Christianity posed for traditional conceptions of virtue. In their view, Shakespeare’s plays presented profound investigations of the good life for human beings by putting ethics and politics in dramatic form, revealing the ways different political regimes encourage rival and antagonistic virtues.