Review : « “The Weight of this Sad Time”: Presentism, Eco-Politics, and Early Modern Studies », Daniel J. Viktus

Boston – March 20, 2025

The Josephine Waters Bennett Lecture

Review by Alexandre Goderniaux

This is a review of Professor Vitkus‘ keynote lecture at the Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference. The following day, I presented the initial findings of my research project within the context of Capturing the Present, in a paper entitled: “National Middle Ages or Imperial Present? Time in the Libels Published under Charles V.” I would like to thank Christian Martens and Lorenzo Paoli for their exemplary organization of the panel.

In a context marked by ecological, climatic, and political crisis—at a time when fundamental research is under unprecedented attack—how can the humanities, and scholarship on the sixteenth century in particular, make a meaningful contribution to society? Conversely, how might the urgent and crisis-ridden times in which we live influence the kinds of questions we pose to documents produced in the distant past? These are the complex questions that this lecture sought to address through an approach that was both scholarly and pedagogical.

King Lear through the lens of historical materialism

Professor Vitkus takes Shakespeare—his area of specialization¹—as a case study, focusing almost exclusively on King Lear. Through a series of excerpts from the play, he demonstrates how the playwright, at the end of the sixteenth century, was already engaging in sophisticated reflections on the crises of his own time—reflections that resonate powerfully with contemporary concerns. These insights are deftly analyzed using the tools of historical materialism, a methodology that Professor Vitkus advocates for its epistemological advantages and pragmatic implications.

Historical materialism, he argues, shares the goals of new materialism—reworking our understanding of the material world from an anti-anthropocentric perspective—yet ultimately surpasses it by addressing its political limitations. As a systemic mode of thought that approaches power through a constant dialectic—rather than opposition—between concepts such as nature/culture, subject/object, and human/non-human, historical materialism enables the production of a powerful political critique that unveils the early modern roots of capitalism’s detrimental impact on both human and non-human entities.

Applied to King Lear, historical materialism reveals, in a series of key passages, essential insights for understanding the crises of the present. Within speeches steeped in (pseudo-) prophetic rhetoric, Professor Vitkus identifies a radical questioning of resistance to unjust policies that lead humanity to its downfall. While the play emphasizes that, in the face of the corruption of the powerful, human agency is necessary, it also manipulates the language of nature and compares tropes of the human with those of the animal to suggest that all monsters are found within nature itself—not outside it. The final act, for its part, illustrates how and why, under capitalism, leaders deny the causes of crisis and the obvious solutions they should implement to address inequality. Viewed through this lens, King Lear appears less as a work of entertaining fiction than as a political text denouncing the corruption of an opportunistic ruling class.

Shakespeare and ‘presentism’

By showing that awareness of the damage humans can inflict upon the non-human has deep historical roots, the lecture makes a compelling case for ‘presentism’. In doing so, Professor Vitkus grants this concept a broader meaning than the one proposed by François Hartog²: he invites us to consider as ‘presentist’ any document that seeks to understand its own time. From this perspective, the case study illustrates two key points. First, the present had already become a subject of critical reflection well before the end of the eighteenth century. Second, the humanities play a vital role in times of crisis. Transforming a system requires understanding how it functions. Thus calling for expertise in its structural mechanisms in order to effectively respond to their consequences. Consequently, the early modern scholar who approaches literary texts with an eye toward their political resonances, and who is equipped with the tools of historical materialism, is undoubtedly among the experts society needs now more than ever.

In summation, professor Vitkus delivered a passionate lecture driven by the conviction that the multiple crises we face today all originate in a shared economic system. At once highly instructive and effective, the talk skillfully wove together distant historical contexts and urgent contemporary issues. It powerfully demonstrated the value of historical materialism and, in doing so, offered a persuasive defense of the humanities’ essential societal role.

Recommended reading for further exploration

• Stuart Hall, “Cultural studies and its theoretical legacies”, in Cultural studies, ed. Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, Paula Treichler, Routledge, 1992, p. 277-294.
• Martin Puchner, Literature for a Changing Planet, Princeton University Press, 2022.
• Daniel Vitkus, “Red-Green Intersectionality beyond the New Materialism: An Eco-Socialist Approach to Shakespeare’s The Tempest” in Intersectionalities of Class in Early Modern English Literature, ed. Ronda Arab and Laurie Ellinghausen, Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.
• Id., “How the 1% Came to Rule the World: Shakespeare, Long-Term Historical Narrative, and the Origins of Capitalism” in Shakespeare and the 99%: Literary Studies, The Profession, and the Production of Inequity, ed. Sharon O’Dair and Timothy Francisco, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, p. 161-181.

1. See Critical Edition of William Shakespeare’s Othello, Barnes & Noble, 2007 [↩]
2. Régimes d’historicité. Présentisme et expériences du temps, Paris, Le Seuil, 2003 [↩]

Alexandre Goderniaux

Universités de Neuchâtel et de Lille / Chercheur associé du service Histoire de la BnF

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