Who is a citizen? What is a person? Who is my neighbor? These fundamental questions about group membership and social formation have been posed repeatedly in political and religious discourses. Citizen-Saint uses keys works by Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Milton to examine the aims, limits, and legacies of classic and modern citizenship in Western literature. Turning to the potent idea of political theology to recover the strange mix of political and religious thinking during the Renaissance, Julia Reinhard Lupton unveils the figure of the citizensaint, who represents at once divine messenger and civil servant, both norm and exception. Embodied by such diverse personages as Antigone, Paul, Barabbas, Shylock, Othello, Caliban, Isabella, and Samson, the citizen-saint is a sacrificial figure: a model of moral and aesthetic extremity that inspires new regimes of citizenship with his or her traumatic passage into the public sphere. And these scenes of civic entry ultimately dramatize the literature of citizenship in both its evident impasses and its enduring potential.

About the Author
Julia Reinhard Lupton is professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California, Irvine. She is the author of Thinking Shakespeare: Essays on Politics and Life, among other books.

Reviews
"Lupton's book wrestles seriously and intelligently with complex issues and brings a sophisticated theoretical perspective to bear on a crucial fault line in Western culture." (Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900) "Citizen-Saints is significant, not only as a contribution to Shakespearean studies, but also as a reflection upon the nature of citizenship and the relation between religion and politics. in our time." (Renaissance Quarterly)"



Book Information
ISBN 9780226143521
Author Julia Reinhard Lupton
Format Paperback
Page Count 296
Imprint University of Chicago Press
Publisher The University of Chicago Press
Weight(grams) 454g
Dimensions(mm) 23mm * 15mm * 2mm