Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare‪.‬

Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare. Edited by Scott L. Newstok. West Lafayette, Indiana: Parlor Press, 2007. Pp. 1, 308. This book, published in 2007, has already gained wide recognition and praise coming from such luminaries of American literary criticism as Harold Bloom and Stephen Greenblatt. It is the result of the editor's, that is Scott L. Newstok's, work consisting in bringing together and editing Kenneth Burke's numerous and important contributions to Shakespeare criticism. Burke wanted apparently to produce a volume of this kind himself, but died without achieving this purpose. Thus the book may be thought of as a fulfillment of Kenneth Burke's intention, and a volume that all students of Burke's thought will have to take into account because Shakespeare criticism is an important part of the legacy he has left behind. Kenneth Duva Burke (1897-1993) (1) was an important American philosopher and critic much influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, Siegmund Freud, and Karl Marx, but, at the same time, very original.