Alexander Welsh

A review of humanism in literature, particularly comedy, since the classical times. A large focus is on the classical writers such as Lucretius and Epicurus; we then jump forward to the time of Spinoza. The book is well organized and flows nicely until we get to the post-Shakespeare period; then it becomes spotty and incomplete, and the author's thoughts are not well organized. He also loses on rating for failing to cover Voltaire; he mentions Voltaire and Hume, but that is the only mention Voltaire gets, while he engages in depth with some people who probably belong more tangentially to the group he is discussing than Voltaire. In addition, he only lightly touches on GB Shaw, basically mentioning him in a short sentence, and then dismissing him as an ideologue, though many of the others that he does cover in detail could be given a similar epithet (in fact, probably most). Overall, decent reading, but with quite a few downsides.… (mehr)