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Shakespeare’s Unjust Wars
in Critical Survey
Author:
Franziska Quabeck
Franziska Quabeck
University of Münster fquabeck@wwu.de
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Abstract
Critics to date tend to identify Shakespeare’s perspective on war with either pacifism or militarism, stances seen as embodied by Erasmus and Machiavelli. This dichotomy leads to a stalemate, since the plays articulate both of these extremes. A third option, however, is the more pragmatic, circumstantial approach to the ethics of war formulated through just war theory. Over the course of the plays, characters gradually develop complex ethical arguments both for and against the justice and injustice of wars. They consider traditional prerequisites for a just war such as just cause, right intention and legitimate authority, but give specific emphasis to the principle of proportionality. A violation of this principle, as becomes obvious, renders the war in question unjust.
Contributor Notes
Franziska Quabeck is a lecturer in English Literature at Westfalische Wilhelms-Universitat Munster. She is the author of Just and Unjust Wars in Shakespeare (de Gruyter, 2013) and Oddities: Kazuo Ishiguro’s Unauthentic Narrators (unpublished manuscript), as well as editor of the collection Just War Theory in Literature: Facts and Fictions (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming).