Shakespeare’s Broken Banquets and Beyond: Hospitality, Reciprocity, Forgiveness, and Identity

This study investigates the theatrical function and moral significance of disrupted banquets in six plays of William Shakespeare and in a history play of Chinese playwright Guan Hanqing in the Yuan dynasty. By examining feasting scenes interrupted by unanticipated guests, or destroyed by the conflict between the host and the guest, from a historical, philosophical, artistic, and ethical perspective, it explores the indispensability and limits of our practice of generosity, reciprocity, and forgiveness particularly to those whom we regard as foes, strangers, and foreigners. It also investigates the way in which history is reshaped by theatrical representations and its influences on our (re)formation of identity.