St. Augustine’s Press

After a long life with Shakespeare, seeing, reading, studying, playing, and teaching the works, Michael Platt has bequeathed to after-livers an appreciation of some of the many wonders of Shakespeare. Seven discerned here are: first, how vast his learning is; second, how witty in expression, how rich in thought, and inventive in coinage his language; third, that he is the first poet ever to write both comedy and tragedy, and beyond that, history, thus making him the English Aristophanes, Sophocles, and Thucydides; fourth, that, unlike his great poetic predecessors, he presents life without the presence of the gods or God and yet, though hidden, everywhere Christian teachings illuminate life; fifth, that he so abundantly multiplies instances, so skillfully juxtaposes them, and so frames them with wisdom, that to understand him you must become philosophic; sixth, that each of his near nine hundred characters is so himself, speaking like no other, that we marvel how a man is is what he is like others, and yet who he is is utterly self-referential and seventh, though Shakespeare is invisible in his own works, like water in water, still in one brief run of words, he tells himself the secrets of all his artful life.

 Witness Through Encounter intends to fulfill multiple needs. The diplomatic approach exemplified herein is singular and worthy of study among political scientists, sociologists, philosophers and diplomats eager to embrace a worldview that is more personal than simply humanistic. This work will also be useful in inter-religious settings. An additional advantage of O’Connor’s presentation of Benedict XVI’s diplomatic approach, his witness through encounter, is that it contains insight valuable to the scholar alongside the resources used.