Shakespeare's Returning Warriors - and Ours

Shakespeares Returning Warriors – and Ours explores how ancient societies sought to ease the return of soldiers and how Shakespearean plays depict such transitions, focusing on the tragic protagonists and antagonists in paradigmatic returning warrior plays. It also analyzes the history plays, comedies, and Hamlet as plays that conform to and deviate from the basic paradigm, and discusses recent attempts to effect successful transitions using Shakespeares plays as therapy.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 176 pages
Publication date: 25 September 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Shakespeare's "Returning Warriors – and Ours" draws its primary inspiration from the contemporary U.S. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) crisis experienced by soldiers transitioning from battlefields back into society. The book begins by examining how ancient societies sought to alleviate the challenges faced by returning warriors, though the term "PTSD" did not gain widespread recognition until the early 1980s. It then delves into a dozen or so Shakespearean plays that depict these transitions at the outset, focusing on the tragic protagonists and antagonists in paradigmatic returning warrior plays such as Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Othello, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus. By exploring the psychological and emotional struggles that prevent warriors from returning to their pre-battlefield status quo or even surviving the psychic demons and moral disequilibrium they unleash on their domestic settings and themselves, the book sheds light on the complexities of these transitions.

Furthermore, the book analyzes the history plays, several comedies, and Hamlet as plays that partly conform to and also significantly deviate from the basic paradigm. The final chapter discusses recent attempts to facilitate successful transitions, often utilizing Shakespeare's plays as therapy, as well as depictions of attempts to wage warfare without inducing PTSD. Through the investigation of these tragedies and model returning warrior experiences, Shakespeare's "Returning Warriors – and Ours" highlights a central and understudied feature of Shakespeare's plays and what they can teach us about PTSD in the modern era, as it remains a widespread phenomenon in American society.

Weight: 453g
Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032067872