The long-standing challenge and problem of living through tragedy, as opposed to living beyond it or simply carrying on in spite of it, is highlighted in this extensive and in-depth scholarly study. Shakespeare was able to live through tragedy and consequently could come into those higher evolutionary states of mind and being, until now so little known, that are so impressively represented in his last plays. This book, published on the 400th anniversary of Shakespeares death, would seem to call especially for this most far-reaching aspect of his achievement, for so long unrecognised, to be at last duly noted and laid open to view.