"Pye treats readers to riveting and insightful interpretations of Shakespearean theater, while, in the process, making a brilliant case for the province of aesthetics. The Antic Root is not only a major contribution to Shakespeare studies but also a compelling philosophical-ethical meditation on aesthetics."--Russ Leo, Princeton University "The scholarship, depth of theoretical insight, and close literary analysis are superb and come together in an admirably lucid, invitingly written book about something that most scholarship today chooses to forget: the simple but inescapable fact of subjective mediation in matters concerning not just art, but also politics and the apprehension of a world.