Author: Theodore SpencerPublisher: New York : Macmillan, 1961 [c1949]
ISBN:
Category : Human beings
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Shakespeare and the Nature of Man
Author: Theodore SpencerPublisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781108003773
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
Analysing Shakespeare's historical background and craft, Spencer's 1943 study investigates the intellectual debates of Shakespeare's age, and the effect these had on the drama of the time. The book outlines the key conflict present in the sixteenth century - the optimistic ideal of man's place in the universe, as presented by the theorists of the time, set against the indisputable and ever-present fact of original sin. This conflict about the nature of man, argues Spencer, is perhaps the deepest underlying cause for the emergence of great Renaissance drama. With detailed reference to Shakespeare's great tragedies, the book demonstrates how Shakespeare presents the fact of evil masked by the appearance of good. Shakespeare's last plays, especially The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, are also analysed in detail to show how they embody a different view from the tragedies, and the discussion is related to the larger perspective of general human experience.
Shakespeare and the Nature of Man
Author: Theodore SpencerPublisher: New York : Macmillan, 1961 [c1949]
ISBN:
Category : Human beings
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Shakespeare And The Nature Of Man
Author: Shakespeare and the Nature of Man
Author: Theodore SpencerPublisher:
ISBN: 9780758191557
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 233
Book Description
Shakespeare
Author: Harold BloomPublisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 0007292848
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 774
Book Description
Harold Bloom, the doyen of American literary critics and author of 'The Western Canon', has spent a professional lifetime reading, writing about, and teaching Shakespeare. In this magisterial interpretation, Bloom explains Shakespeare's genius in a radical and provocative re-reading of the plays.
Lucretius and Shakespeare on the Nature of Things
Author: Richard Allen ShoafPublisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443869538
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 165
Book Description
Lucretius and Shakespeare on the Nature of Things maps large, new vistas for understanding the relationship between De rerum natura and Shakespeare’s works. In chapters on six important plays across the canon (King Lear, Macbeth, Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, The Tempest, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream), it demonstrates that Shakespeare articulates his erotics of being, his “great creating nature” (The Winter’s Tale), by drawing on imagery he learned from Ovid and other classical poets, but especially from Lucretius, in his powerful epic that celebrates Venus and her endless creativity. Responding to Lucretius’s widely admired Latinity in his exposition of the life of man in nature, Shakespeare emerges as an early modern materialist who writes poetry that is effectively “atomic,” marked (as we might say today) by fission (hendiadys, for example) and fusion (synoeciosis, for example), joining and splitting, splitting and joining language and character as no other poet has ever done – To give away yourself keeps yourself still; My grave is like to be my wedding bed; I begin/To doubt the equivocation of the fiend/That lies like truth. Readers of Shoaf’s book will encounter anew, through both fresh evidence and close reading, Shakespeare’s universally acknowledged commitment to the art of nature and the nature of art. With Lucretius’s poetry as inspiration, Shakespeare becomes the poet of the material, both in art and in nature, immensely creative with his dædala lingua like dædala natura – his wonder-crafting tongue like wonder-working nature.
The Soul of Statesmanship
Author: Khalil M. HabibPublisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498543278
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 226
Book Description
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.
Shakespeare
Author: Stanley WellsPublisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393315622
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 438
Book Description
"Stanley Wells commands particular attention. . . .In this new book he surveys with common sense, stylish prose, and the insight that comes from a lifetime of study, all the plays and poems, setting them against what is known of their creator's life. . . . He is particularly attentive to theatrical values and alludes regularly to modern stage productions." --Washington Post
Shakespeare and the Nature of Man
Author: Theodore SpencerPublisher:
ISBN: 9781079741513
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Book Description
Analysing Shakespeare's historical background and craft, Spencer's 1943 study investigates the intellectual debates of Shakespeare's age, and the effect these had on the drama of the time. The book outlines the key conflict present in the sixteenth century - the optimistic ideal of man's place in the universe, as presented by the theorists of the time, set against the indisputable and ever-present fact of original sin. This conflict about the nature of man, argues Spencer, is perhaps the deepest underlying cause for the emergence of great Renaissance drama. With detailed reference to Shakespeare's great tragedies, the book demonstrates how Shakespeare presents the fact of evil masked by the appearance of good. Shakespeare's last plays, especially The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, are also analysed in detail to show how they embody a different view from the tragedies, and the discussion is related to the larger perspective of general human experience.
Author: William Shakespeare