Shakespeare Saved My Life - Softcover

Bates, Laura

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1402273142 ISBN 13: 9781402273148

Publisher: Sourcebooks, 2013

Synopsis

"Shakespeare Saved My Life touches on the search for meaning in life, the struggles that complicate the path to triumph and the salvation that can be found in literature's great works ... An inspiring account."―Shelf Awareness

A female professor, a super maximum security prisoner, and how Shakespeare saved them both

Shakespeare professor and prison volunteer Laura Bates thought she had seen it all. That is, until she decided to teach Shakespeare in a place the bard had never been before ― supermax solitary confinement.

In this unwelcoming place, surrounded by inmates known as the worst of the worst, is Larry Newton. A convicted murderer with several escape attempts under his belt and a brilliantly agile mind on his shoulders, Larry was trying to break out of prison at the same time Laura was fighting to get her program started behind bars.

What reviewers are saying about Shakespeare Saved My Life

"You don't have to be a William Shakespeare fan, a prisoner, or a prison reformer to appreciate this uplifting book. "Shakespeare Saved My Life" also reveals many important truths ... about the meaning of empathy in our dealings with others"―Finger Lake Times

"Shakespeare Saved My Life touches on the search for meaning in life, the struggles that complicate the path to triumph and the salvation that can be found in literature's great works ... An inspiring account."―Shelf Awareness

"Opening the mind's prison proves enormously gratifying, not to mention effective ... brave, groundbreaking work"―Publishers Weekly

"An eye-opening study reiterating the perennial power of books, self-discipline, and the Bard of Avon."―Kirkus

"A powerful testament to how Shakespeare continues to speak to contemporary readers in all sorts of circumstances."―Booklist

About this title

About the Author

Laura Bates is an English professor at Indiana State University, where she has taught courses on Shakespeare for the past 15 years to students on campus and in prison. Her work has been featured in national media, including MSNBC's Lock Up. Laura lives in Indiana.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER 1

Favorite Freakin’ Shakespeare

Oh, man, this is my favorite freakin’ quote!”

What professor wouldn’t like to hear a student enthuse so much over a Shakespeare play―a Shakespeare history play, no less! And then to be able to flip open the two-thousand-page Complete Works of Shakespeare and find the quote immediately: “When that this body did contain a spirit, a kingdom for it was too small a bound”!

He smacks the book as he finishes reading. Meanwhile, I’m still scrambling to find the quote somewhere in Henry the Fourth, Part One.

“Act uh...?”

“Act 5, scene 4,” my student informs me, again smacking the page with his enthusiastic fist. “Oh, man, that is crazy!”

Yes, this is crazy: I am sitting side-by-side with a prisoner who has just recently been allowed to join the general prison population after more than ten years in solitary confinement. We met three years prior, in 2003, when I created the first-ever Shakespeare program in a solitary confinement unit, and we spent three years working together in that unit. Now we have received unprecedented permission to work together, alone, unsupervised, to create a series of Shakespeare workbooks for prisoners. Newton is gesticulating so animatedly that it draws the attention of an officer walking by our little classroom. He pops his head inside.

“Everything okay in here?” he asks.

“Just reading Shakespeare,” I reply.

He shakes his head and walks on.

“That is crazy!” Newton repeats, his head still in the book.

A record ten and a half consecutive years in solitary confinement, and he’s not crazy, he’s not dangerous―he’s reading Shakespeare.

And maybe, just maybe, it is because he’s reading Shakespeare that he is not crazy, or dangerous.

About this edition

• Publisher: Sourcebooks
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1402273142
• ISBN 13: 9781402273148
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 304