Shall we dance? A Shakespearian reading of the subprime crisis

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to open a dialogue between academic accounts of the subprime crisis and The Life of Timon of Athens by William Shakespeare.

Design/methodology/approach

Andre Orlean’s analysis of the crisis published in 2009 is closely examined to trace the ways in which it echoes this seventeenth-century play on issues of debt, gift, trust and belief.

Findings

Shakespeare’s play provides an astonishingly relevant description that can account for and provide a new reading of most of Orlean’s (2009) detailed and in-depth academic analysis.

Originality/value

Following the chronology of a literary piece, this article opens a dialogue with the academic literature to allow for gaining a particular perspective, namely, beyond specific elements, the underlying dynamics of the subprime crisis are sadly classic in terms of trust and beliefs. As we will see, Shakespeare had already seen everything […].

Citation

Bazin, Y. (2014), "Shall we dance? A Shakespearian reading of the subprime crisis", Society and Business Review, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 310-319. https://doi.org/10.1108/SBR-07-2014-0036