Shakespeare¿s Influence on Karl Marx

This volume presents a close reading of instances of Shakespearean quotations, allusions, imagery and rhetoric found in Karl Marx¿s collected works and letters, which provides evidence that Shakespeare¿s writings exerted a formative influence on Marx and the development of his work. Through a methodology of intertextual and interlingual close-reading, this study provides evidence of the extent to which Shakespeare influenced Marx and to which Marxism has Shakespearean roots. As a child, Marx was home-schooled in Ludwig von Westphalen¿s little academy, as it were, which was Shakespeare- and literary-focused. The group included von Westphalen¿s daughter, who later became Marx¿s wife, Jenny. The influence of Shakespeare in Marx¿s writings shows up as early as his school essays and love letters. He modelled his early journalism partly on ideas and rhetoric found in Shakespeare¿s plays. Each turn in the development of Marx¿s thought¿from Romantic to Left Hegelian and then to Communist¿is