Most studies of Shakespearean tragedy rest on the idea that we might be able to understand not just how terrible things happen but also why. Rhodri Lewis and Fintan O’Toole, however, agree that Shakespeare’s plays are designed to expose this as little more than a comforting fallacy. Lewis calls the fictions with which Shakespeare’s characters try to blindfold themselves ‘delusionality’. The really hard bit is to recognise our own complicity in thinking of this kind.

But then, as O’Toole warns us, life is hard. His book Shakespeare is Hard, but So is Life was first published as No More Heroes: A Radical Guide to Shakespeare in 1990. It reappears now sporting a sprightly new introduction, with references to Elon Musk, Boris Johnson and others. Great journalist that he is, O’Toole enjoys catching our attention with shockers like ‘Hamlet is a slob, a shirker’, headlines like ‘Foetal Attractions’ and jabs like ‘we don’t actually give a damn about Young Siward’. But he is also a fine literary and dramatic critic, as evidenced by his observations on the significance of toenails and hair in Macbeth. He makes some bold claims – that Iago is ‘as close to being a tragic protagonist as makes no difference’, that Lear is ‘an archetype of the new middle-class man’ who believes ‘you are what you have’ and that the witches are almost as central to Macbeth as the titular character – but he does so convincingly and with panache. 

O’Toole confesses (or boasts) that he has no idea how original he’s being because he’s read hardly anything written on Shakespeare. It’s certainly a commonplace to say that Shakespeare’s times were characterised by ‘traumatic change’. Yet O’Toole shows what this meant, on the ground: he knows all about ‘the