Rethinking Shakespeare's Political Philosophy

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Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
ISBN 13 : 0748682422
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (486 download)

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Book Synopsis Rethinking Shakespeare's Political Philosophy by : Alex Schulman

Download or read book Rethinking Shakespeare's Political Philosophy written by Alex Schulman and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-21 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What were Shakespeare's politics? As this study demonstrates, contained in Shakespeare's plays is an astonishingly powerful reckoning with the tradition of Western political thought, one whose depth and scope places Shakespeare alongside Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes and others. This book is the first attempt by a political theorist to read Shakespeare within the trajectory of political thought as one of the authors of modernity. From Shakespeare's interpretation of ancient and medieval politics to his wrestling with issues of legitimacy, religious toleration, family conflict, and economic change, Alex Schulman shows how Shakespeare produces a fascinating map of modern politics at its crisis-filled birth. As a result, there are brand new readings of Troilus and Cressida, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, King Lear, Richard II and Henry IV, parts I and II , The Merchant of Venice and Measure for Measure.

Political Aesthetics in the Era of Shakespeare

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Author :
Publisher : Northwestern University Press
ISBN 13 : 0810142198
Total Pages : 385 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis Political Aesthetics in the Era of Shakespeare by : Christopher Pye

Download or read book Political Aesthetics in the Era of Shakespeare written by Christopher Pye and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-15 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The turn to political concerns in Renaissance studies, beginning in the 1980s, was dictated by forms of cultural materialism that staked their claims against the aesthetic dimension of the work. Recently, however, the more robustly political conception of the aesthetic formulated by theorists such as Theodor Adorno and Jacques Rancière has revitalized literary analysis generally and early modern studies in particular. For these theorists, aesthetics forms the crucial link between politics and the most fundamental phenomenological organization of the world, what Rancière terms the “distribution of the sensible.” Taking up this expansive conception of aesthetics, Political Aesthetics in the Era of Shakespeare suggests that the political stakes of the literary work—and Shakespeare’s work in particular—extend from the most intimate dimensions of affective response to the problem of the grounds of political society. The approaches to aesthetic thought included in this volume explore the intersections between the literary work and the full range of concerns animating the field today: political philosophy, affect theory, and ecocritical analysis of environs and habitus.

Shakespeare’s Political Wisdom

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Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 1137314656
Total Pages : 234 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (373 download)

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Book Synopsis Shakespeare’s Political Wisdom by : T. Burns

Download or read book Shakespeare’s Political Wisdom written by T. Burns and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-04-03 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shakespeare's Political Wisdom offers interpretations of five Shakespearean plays with a view to the enduring guidance those plays can provide to human, political life. The plays have been chosen for their relentless attention to the questions that were once and may sometime become, or be recognized as being, the heart and soul of politics.

Perspectives on Politics in Shakespeare

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Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 9780739116845
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (168 download)

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Book Synopsis Perspectives on Politics in Shakespeare by : John Albert Murley

Download or read book Perspectives on Politics in Shakespeare written by John Albert Murley and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2006 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shows us that Shakespeare's poetic imagination displays the essence of politics and inspires reflection on the fundamental questions of statesmanship and political leadership. This book explores themes such as classical republicanism and liberty, the rule of law and morality, the nature and limits of statesmanship, and the character of democracy.

Thinking with Shakespeare

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Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022671103X
Total Pages : 313 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (267 download)

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Book Synopsis Thinking with Shakespeare by : Julia Reinhard Lupton

Download or read book Thinking with Shakespeare written by Julia Reinhard Lupton and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-10-04 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is a person? What company do people keep with animals, plants, and things? Such questions—bearing fundamentally on the shared meaning of politics and life—animate Shakespearean drama, yet their urgency has often been obscured. Julia Reinhard Lupton gently dislodges Shakespeare’s plays from their historical confines to pursue their universal implications. From Petruchio’s animals and Kate’s laundry to Hamlet’s friends and Caliban’s childhood, Lupton restages thinking in Shakespeare as an embodied act of consent, cure, and care. Thinking with Shakespeare encourages readers to ponder matters of shared concern with the playwright by their side. Taking her cue from Hannah Arendt, Lupton reads Shakespeare for fresh insights into everything from housekeeping and animal husbandry to biopower and political theology.

Shakespeare's Politics

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Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226060411
Total Pages : 161 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (26 download)

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Book Synopsis Shakespeare's Politics by : Allan Bloom

Download or read book Shakespeare's Politics written by Allan Bloom and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1964 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking the classical view that the political shapes man's consciousness, Allan Bloom considers Shakespeare as a profoundly political Renaissance dramatist. He aims to recover Shakespeare's ideas and beliefs and to make his work once again a recognized source for the serious study of moral and political problems. In essays looking at Julius Caesar, Othello, and The Merchant of Venice, Bloom shows how Shakespeare presents a picture of man that does not assume privileged access for only literary criticism. With this claim, he argues that political philosophy offers a comprehensive framework within which the problems of the Shakespearean heroes can be viewed. In short, he argues that Shakespeare was an eminently political author. Also included is an essay by Harry V. Jaffa on the limits of politics in King Lear. "A very good book indeed . . . one which can be recommended to all who are interested in Shakespeare." —G. P. V. Akrigg "This series of essays reminded me of the scope and depth of Shakespeare's original vision. One is left with the impression that Shakespeare really had figured out the answers to some important questions many of us no longer even know to ask."-Peter A. Thiel, CEO, PayPal, Wall Street Journal Allan Bloom was the John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor on the Committee on Social Thought and the co-director of the John M. Olin Center for Inquiry into the Theory and Practice of Democracy at the University of Chicago. Harry V. Jaffa is professor emeritus at Claremont McKenna College and Claremont Graduate School.

Shakespeare's History Plays

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Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
ISBN 13 : 147442354X
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (744 download)

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Book Synopsis Shakespeare's History Plays by : Neema Parvini

Download or read book Shakespeare's History Plays written by Neema Parvini and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shakespeare's History Plays boldly moves criticism of Shakespeare's history plays beyond anti-humanist theoretical approaches. This important intervention in the critical and theoretical discourse of Shakespeare studies summarises, evaluates and ultimately calls time on the mode of criticism that has prevailed in Shakespeare studies over the past thirty years. It heralds a new, more dynamic way of reading Shakespeare as a supremely intelligent and creative political thinker, whose history plays address and illuminate the very questions with which cultural historicists have been so preoccupied since the 1980s. In providing bold and original readings of the first and second tetralogies (Henry VI, Richard III, Richard II and Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2), the book reignites old debates and re-energises recent bids to humanise Shakespeare and to restore agency to the individual in the critical readings of his plays

The Soul of Statesmanship

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Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1498543278
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (985 download)

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Book Synopsis The Soul of Statesmanship by : Khalil M. Habib

Download or read book The Soul of Statesmanship written by Khalil M. Habib and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-09-15 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shakespeare’s plays explore a staggering range of political topics, from the nature of tyranny, to the practical effects of Christianity on politics and the family, to the meaning and practice of statesmanship. From great statesmen like Burke and Lincoln to the American frontiersman sitting by his rustic fire, those wrestling with the problems of the human soul and its confrontation with a puzzling world of political peril and promise have long considered these plays a source of political wisdom. The chapters in this volume support and illuminate this connection between Shakespearean drama and politics by examining a matter of central concern in both domains: the human soul. By depicting a bewildering variety of characters as they seek happiness and self-knowledge in the context of differing political regimes, family ties, religious duties, friendships, feuds, and poetic inspirations, Shakespeare illuminates the complex interdynamics between self-rule and political governance, educating readers by compelling us to share in the struggles of and relate to the tensions felt by each character in a way that no political treatise or lecture can. The authors of this volume, drawing upon expertise in fields such as political philosophy, American government, and law, explore the Bard’s dramatization of perennial questions about human nature, moral virtue, and statesmanship, demonstrating that reading his plays as works of philosophical literature enhances our understanding of political life and provides a source of advice and inspiration for the citizens and statesmen of today and tomorrow.

The Routledge Companion to Shakespeare and Philosophy

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317386892
Total Pages : 612 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (173 download)

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Book Synopsis The Routledge Companion to Shakespeare and Philosophy by : Craig Bourne

Download or read book The Routledge Companion to Shakespeare and Philosophy written by Craig Bourne and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-10-25 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Iago’s ‘I am not what I am’ epitomises how Shakespeare’s work is rich in philosophy, from issues of deception and moral deviance to those concerning the complex nature of the self, the notions of being and identity, and the possibility or impossibility of self-knowledge and knowledge of others. Shakespeare’s plays and poems address subjects including ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and social and political philosophy. They also raise major philosophical questions about the nature of theatre, literature, tragedy, representation and fiction. The Routledge Companion to Shakespeare and Philosophy is the first major guide and reference source to Shakespeare and philosophy. It examines the following important topics: What roles can be played in an approach to Shakespeare by drawing on philosophical frameworks and the work of philosophers? What can philosophical theories of meaning and communication show about the dynamics of Shakespearean interactions and vice versa? How are notions such as political and social obligation, justice, equality, love, agency and the ethics of interpersonal relationships demonstrated in Shakespeare’s works? What do the plays and poems invite us to say about the nature of knowledge, belief, doubt, deception and epistemic responsibility? How can the ways in which Shakespeare’s characters behave illuminate existential issues concerning meaning, absurdity, death and nothingness? What might Shakespeare’s characters and their actions show about the nature of the self, the mind and the identity of individuals? How can Shakespeare’s works inform philosophical approaches to notions such as beauty, humour, horror and tragedy? How do Shakespeare’s works illuminate philosophical questions about the nature of fiction, the attitudes and expectations involved in engagement with theatre, and the role of acting and actors in creating representations? The Routledge Companion to Shakespeare and Philosophy is essential reading for students and researchers in aesthetics, philosophy of literature and philosophy of theatre, as well as those exploring Shakespeare in disciplines such as literature and theatre and drama studies. It is also relevant reading for those in areas of philosophy such as ethics, epistemology and philosophy of language.

Shakespeare's Fugitive Politics

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Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
ISBN 13 : 0748697357
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (486 download)

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Book Synopsis Shakespeare's Fugitive Politics by : Thomas P. Anderson

Download or read book Shakespeare's Fugitive Politics written by Thomas P. Anderson and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-16 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Establishes Shakespeares plays as some of the periods most speculative political literature Shakespeares Fugitive Politics makes the case that Shakespeares plays reveal there is always something more terrifying to the king than rebellion. The book seeks to move beyond the presumption that political evolution leads ineluctably away from autocracy and aristocracy toward republicanism and popular sovereignty. Instead, it argues for affirmative politics in Shakespeare the process of transforming scenes of negative affect into political resistance. Shakespeares Fugitive Politics makes the case that Shakespeares affirmative politics appears not in his dialectical opposition to sovereignty, absolutism, or tyranny; nor is his affirmative politics an inchoate form of republicanism on its way to becoming politically viable. Instead, this study claims that it is in the place of dissensus that the expression of the eventful condition of affirmative politics takes place a fugitive expression that the sovereign order always wishes to shut down. Key FeaturesPromotes a new understanding of 'fugitive democracy'Establishes the presence of a form of alternative politics in early modern drama, articulated through the contours of theories of sovereigntyExplores how the parameters of contemporary radical politics take shape in major Shakespeare plays, including Coriolanus, King John, Henry V, Titus Andronicus, The Winters Tale and Julius Caesar

The Philosopher's English King

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Publisher : Boydell & Brewer
ISBN 13 : 1580465315
Total Pages : 291 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (84 download)

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Book Synopsis The Philosopher's English King by : Leon Harold Craig

Download or read book The Philosopher's English King written by Leon Harold Craig and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2015 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book on Shakespeare's Henriad studies the tetralogy as a work of political thought. Leon Craig, author of two previous volumes on Shakespeare's political thought, argues that the four plays present Shakespeare's teaching on the question of who has the right to rule, one of the perennial questions of political philosophy. Offering original interpretations of each of the plays, Craig discusses divine right in Richard II, political upheaval and disputed rule in Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, and just rule in Henry V. In addition Craig shows how the four plays constitute one narrative -- starting in Richard II and concluding in Henry V -- telling the story of the making of a legitimate ruler, England's most famous warrior king, Henry V. The Philosopher's English King provides a meticulous account of Shakespeare's philosophy of legitimate rule, contributing to the burgeoning scholarship on Shakespeare as a political thinker and showing yet again that the poet deserves to be placed among the ranks of such political philosophers as Plato, Machiavelli, and Hobbes. Leon Craig is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Alberta.

Shakespeare between Machiavelli and Hobbes

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Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1498514081
Total Pages : 191 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (985 download)

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Book Synopsis Shakespeare between Machiavelli and Hobbes by : Andrew Moore

Download or read book Shakespeare between Machiavelli and Hobbes written by Andrew Moore and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-08-29 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shakespeare between Machiavelli and Hobbes explores Shakespeare’s political outlook by comparing some of the playwright’s best-known works to the works of Italian political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli and English social contract theorist Thomas Hobbes. By situating Shakespeare ‘between’ these two thinkers, the distinctly modern trajectory of the playwright’s work becomes visible. Throughout his career, Shakespeare interrogates the divine right of kings, absolute monarchy, and the metaphor of the body politic. Simultaneously he helps to lay the groundwork for modern politics through his dramatic explorations of consent, liberty, and political violence. We can thus understand Shakespeare’s corpus as a kind of eulogy: a funeral speech dedicated to outmoded and deficient theories of politics. We can also understand him as a revolutionary political thinker who, along with Machiavelli and Hobbes, reimagined the origins and ends of government. All three thinkers understood politics primarily as a response to our mortality. They depict politics as the art of managing and organizing human bodies—caring for their needs, making space for the satisfaction of desires, and protecting them from the threat of violent death. This book features new readings of Shakespeare’s plays that illuminate the playwright’s major political preoccupations and his investment in materialist politics.

Fraught Decisions in Plato and Shakespeare

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Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1786616289
Total Pages : 275 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (866 download)

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Book Synopsis Fraught Decisions in Plato and Shakespeare by : Dianne Rothleder

Download or read book Fraught Decisions in Plato and Shakespeare written by Dianne Rothleder and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-11-17 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the reincarnation myth in Book X of Plato’s Republic, the unnamed first soul, who has lived a good life and has been rewarded in the afterlife, chooses a new life and fate, and chooses catastrophically badly. He finds himself fated to eat his own children. Despite being warned to blame only himself, he wails and blames anything and everything else in his conviction that his fate is undeserved. Though he should not be shocked because he has made this choice himself, he is incredulous because he has completely misunderstood the nature of his choice. Starting with Plato’s myth, this book looks at the errors this soul has made and considers these errors through both the Republic and a series of paired Shakespeare plays. Reading the Republic along with Othello and The Comedy of Errors, the first section focuses on the misreading of comedy and tragedy in the life of the individual; returning to the Republic and using The Merchant of Venice and Pericles, Part II focuses on the broadened context of the misuse of political and economic forces; returning again to the Republic and reading Timon of Athens and Measure for Measure, Part III focuses on the broadest context, the misunderstanding of the inseparability of birth and infinite debt. The hope of the text, and the hope of human life, is to help us avoid choosing lives that devour what we most love.

Shakespeare's Political Pageant

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Shakespeare's Political Pageant by : Joseph Alulis

Download or read book Shakespeare's Political Pageant written by Joseph Alulis and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Literary works, through their very personal means of characterization, reveal the direct effect of politics on individuals in a way a political treatise cannot. The distinguished contributors to this volume share the belief that Shakespeare is the author who most effectively sets forth the multifarious pageant of politics. Shakespeare's rich canon presents monarchy and republic, tyrant and king, thinker and soldier, and Christian and pagan. The twelve essays in Shakespeare's Political Pageant discuss a broad range of Shakespeare's dramatic poetry from the perspective of the political theorist. This innovative book demonstrates the immense value of seeing Shakespeare's plays in the context of political philosophy. It will be an important source for students and scholars of both political science and literature.

Shakespeare, Popularity and the Public Sphere

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1316738000
Total Pages : 219 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (167 download)

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Book Synopsis Shakespeare, Popularity and the Public Sphere by : Jeffrey S. Doty

Download or read book Shakespeare, Popularity and the Public Sphere written by Jeffrey S. Doty and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-01-16 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In late Elizabethan England, political appeals to the people were considered dangerously democratic, even seditious: the commons were supposed to have neither political voice nor will. Yet such appeals happened so often that the regime coined the word 'popularity' to condemn the pursuit of popular favor. Jeffrey S. Doty argues that in plays from Richard II to Coriolanus, Shakespeare made the tactics of popularity - and the wider public they addressed - vital aspects of politics. Shakespeare figured the public not as an extension of the royal court, but rather as a separate entity that, like the Globe's spectators who surrounded the fictional princes on its thrust stage, subjected their rulers to relentless scrutiny. For ordinary playgoers, Shakespeare's plays offered good practice for understanding the means and ends of popularity - and they continue to provide insight to the public relations strategies that have come to define modern political culture.

Shakespeare and the Body Politic

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Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 0739170961
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (391 download)

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Book Synopsis Shakespeare and the Body Politic by : Bernard J. Dobski

Download or read book Shakespeare and the Body Politic written by Bernard J. Dobski and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2013-04-25 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: mate Shakespeare’s corpus, and one of the most prominent is the image of the body. Sketched out in the eternal lines of his plays and poetry, and often drawn in exquisite detail, variations on the body metaphor abound in the works of Shakespeare. Attention to the political dimensions of this metaphor in Shakespeare and the Body Politic permits readers to examine the sentiments of romantic love and family life, the enjoyment of peace, prosperity and justice, and the spirited pursuit of honor and glory as they inevitably emerge within the social, moral, and religious limits of particular political communities. The lessons to be learned from such an examination are both timely and timeless. For the tensions between the desires and pursuits of individuals and the health of the community forge the sinews of every body politic, regardless of the form it may take or even where and when one might encounter it. In his plays and poetry Shakespeare illuminates these tensions within the body politic, which itself constitutes the framework for a flourishing community of human beings and citizens—from the ancient city-states of Greece and Rome to the Christian cities and kingdoms of early modern Europe. The contributors to this volume attend to the political context and role of political actors within the diverse works of Shakespeare that they explore. Their arguments thus exhibit together Shakespeare’s political thought. By examining his plays and poetry with the seriousness they deserve, Shakespeare’s audiences and readers not only discover an education in human and political virtue, but also find themselves written into his lines. Shakespeare’s body of work is indeed politic, and the whole that it forms incorporates us all.

Theatre, Magic and Philosophy

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Author :
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1134767714
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (347 download)

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Book Synopsis Theatre, Magic and Philosophy by : Gabriela Dragnea Horvath

Download or read book Theatre, Magic and Philosophy written by Gabriela Dragnea Horvath and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-07-06 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analyzing Shakespeare's views on theatre and magic and John Dee's concerns with philosophy and magic in the light of the Italian version of philosophia perennis (mainly Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola and Giordano Bruno), this book offers a new perspective on the Italian-English cultural dialogue at the Renaissance and its contribution to intellectual history. In an interdisciplinary and intercultural approach, it investigates the structural commonalities of theatre and magic as contiguous to the foundational concepts of perennial philosophy, and explores the idea that the Italian thinkers informed not only natural philosophy and experimentation in England, but also Shakespeare's theatre. The first full length project to consider Shakespeare and John Dee in juxtaposition, this study brings textual and contextual evidence that Gonzalo, an honest old Counsellor in The Tempest, is a plausible theatrical representation of John Dee. At the same time, it places John Dee in the tradition of the philosophia perennis-accounting for what appears to the modern scholar the conflicting nature of his faith and his scientific mind, his powerful fantasy and his need for order and rigor-and clarifies Edward Kelly's role and creative participation in the scrying sessions, regarding him as co-author of the dramatic episodes reported in Dee's spiritual diaries. Finally, it connects the Enochian/Angelic language to the myth of the Adamic language at the core of Italian philosophy and brings evidence that the Enochian is an artificial language originated by applying creatively the analytical instruments of text hermeneutics used in the Cabala.