This is an unusual book: a monograph on Shakespeare published here in India. Since Shakespeare is receding from most syllabi, publications on mainstream criticism are infrequent. Shakespeare studies in India, instead, are now flush with studies of the adaptation of Shakespeare in Indian theatre and film, continuing the effect of the postcolonial and the more recent globalization of Shakespeare, mostly as collections of essays which generate a different impact. An entire book dedicated to the re-reading and re-interpretation of nine of Shakespeare’s well-known plays and characters by a single author stands out and is to be applauded.
The author, Ruth Vanita, formerly of the University of Montana, revises the accepted notions of ‘history’ stating clearly in her opening sentence that, ‘History in the title of the book refers primarily to the mostly unwritten but collectively remembered history of people’s lives, especially the lives of women, the poor, the aged and the Jews.’ The book foregrounds women’s history taking its cue from Viola’s reply to the Duke’s question in Twelfth Night, ‘And what’s her history?’, … ‘A blank, my lord.’ This recouping of the critical gaps in women’s history is to be expected from no less a pioneer of promoting women’s writing and activism—Vanita was the founding co-editor of the first Indian journal, Manushi (1978)—devoted to this endeavour. In fact, Ruth Vanita has been prodigious in her writing, publishing not just scholarly articles, but collections of poems, two novels, several translations from Hindi to English, all largely related to women and same-sex desire. Similar is this, her latest book.