Please join us for a CuSPP Seminar in person (ADH Conference Room) and online on Thursday 5 March from 1-2. Please refer to the CuSPP email or email Wesley.Lim@anu.edu.au for the link.

ABSTRACT: This thesis explores what I term Shakespeare’s terrible neutrality, a comprehensive and impartial stance that pervades his complete works. Drawing on a close reading of Shakespeare’s plays, as well as on the critical tradition from Keats, George Steiner, and contemporary Shakespeare scholars, I argue that Shakespeare’s terrible neutrality lies in his refusal to take a definitive stance (and at times even in his deliberate violation of poetic justice). This neutrality enables him to gain a comprehensive understanding of the world and human experience, particularly when considered across his entire oeuvre. Through a sustained engagement with four major themes—religion, politics, love, and law—this thesis demonstrates how Shakespeare repeatedly revisits similar scenarios, motifs, and dilemmas, adjusting variables such as character traits, social contexts, and narrative structures to create a world in which both positive and negative elements coexist, while readers can clearly discern right from wrong. Causal relationships cannot be reduced to a single predictable or explanatory framework, yet events unfold in ways consistent with reality and logic, and a greater diversity of characters and narrative developments becomes possible precisely because of this terrible neutrality

Phoebe Chen is a PhD candidate in English Literature. Her research focuses on Shakespeare.