This volume presents a close reading of instances of Shakespearean quotations, allusions, imagery and rhetoric found in Karl Marx-s collected works and letters, which provides evidence that Shakespeare-s writings exerted a formative influence on Marx and the development of his work. Through a methodology of intertextual and interlingual close-reading, this study provides evidence of the extent to which Shakespeare influenced Marx and to which Marxism has Shakespearean roots. As a child, Marx was home-schooled in Ludwig von Westphalen-s little academy, as it were, which was Shakespeare- and literary-focused. The group included von Westphalen-s daughter, who later became Marx-s wife, Jenny. The influence of Shakespeare in Marx-s writings shows up as early as his school essays and love letters. He modelled his early journalism partly on ideas and rhetoric found in Shakespeare-s plays. Each turn in the development of Marx-s thought-from Romantic to Left Hegelian and then to Communist-is
