Passion, Prudence, and Virtue in Shakespearean Drama

Passion, Prudence, and Virtue in Shakespearean Drama
Author: Unhae Park Langis
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2011-05-26
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1441120246

Virtue, as a Renaissance ideal, was largely conceived as a rational governing of unruly passions. Revising this early modern commonplace, this study shows how Shakespeare dramatizes a discerning Aristotelian conception of virtue as a touchstone of excellence: executing just action at the best time, in the best way, and for the best end within the contingent world. Not only situational, Aristotelian virtue is, moreover, integrative, harmonizing passion and reason, will and understanding, towards personal and civil good. Yet as a surprising backfire on the misogynist streak in Aristotle, the resistant female characters in Shakespeare emerge as the exemplars of ethical action, appropriating traditionally male-inflected virtue. At the junction of ethical, psycho-physiological, cultural and gender studies, this approach of prudential psychology bridges an apparent but needless divergence of critical focus between affect and cognition, ethics and prudential action. Firmly situated in new historicist practices, prudential psychology goes beyond narrow discourses of power into the all-encompassing arena of virtue as the complete life, which recommends an interdisciplinary approach for a fuller understanding of Shakespeare's works.

Passion, Prudence, and Virtue in Shakespearean Drama

Passion, Prudence, and Virtue in Shakespearean Drama
Author: Unhae Park Langis
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2011-05-26
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1441187456

Virtue, as a Renaissance ideal, was largely conceived as a rational governing of unruly passions. Revising this early modern commonplace, this study shows how Shakespeare dramatizes a discerning Aristotelian conception of virtue as a touchstone of excellence: executing just action at the best time, in the best way, and for the best end within the contingent world. Not only situational, Aristotelian virtue is, moreover, integrative, harmonizing passion and reason, will and understanding, towards personal and civil good. Yet as a surprising backfire on the misogynist streak in Aristotle, the resistant female characters in Shakespeare emerge as the exemplars of ethical action, appropriating traditionally male-inflected virtue. At the junction of ethical, psycho-physiological, cultural and gender studies, this approach of prudential psychology bridges an apparent but needless divergence of critical focus between affect and cognition, ethics and prudential action. Firmly situated in new historicist practices, prudential psychology goes beyond narrow discourses of power into the all-encompassing arena of virtue as the complete life, which recommends an interdisciplinary approach for a fuller understanding of Shakespeare's works.

Shakespeare and Virtue

Shakespeare and Virtue
Author: Julia Reinhard Lupton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 796
Release: 2023-01-31
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1108910432

This volume maps Shakespearean virtue in all its plasticity and variety, providing thirty-eight succinct, wide-ranging essays that reveal a breadth and diversity exceeding any given morality or code of behaviour. Clearly explaining key concepts in the history of ethics and in classical, theological, and global virtue traditions, the collection reveals their presence in the works of Shakespeare in interpersonal, civic, and ecological scenes of action. Paying close attention to individual identity and social environment, chapters also consider how the virtuous horizons broached in Shakespearean drama have been tested anew by the plays' global travels and fresh encounters with different traditions. Including sections on global wisdom, performance and pedagogy, this handbook affirms virtue as a resource for humanistic education and the building of human capacity.

Twins in Early Modern English Drama and Shakespeare

Twins in Early Modern English Drama and Shakespeare
Author: Daisy Murray
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2017-01-06
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1317199634

This volume investigates the early modern understanding of twinship through new readings of plays, informed by discussions of twins appearing in such literature as anatomy tracts, midwifery manuals, monstrous birth broadsides, and chapbooks. The book contextualizes such dramatic representations of twinship, investigating contemporary discussions about twins in medical and popular literature and how such dialogues resonate with the twin characters appearing on the early modern stage. Garofalo demonstrates that, in this period, twin births were viewed as biologically aberrant and, because of this classification, authors frequently attempt to explain the phenomenon in ways which call into question the moral and constitutional standing of both the parents and the twins themselves. In line with current critical studies on pregnancy and the female body, discussions of twin births reveal a distrust of the mother and the processes surrounding twin conception; however, a corresponding suspicion of twins also emerges, which monstrous birth pamphlets exemplify. This book analyzes the representation of twins in early modern drama in light of this information, moving from tragedies through to comedies. This progression demonstrates how the dramatic potential inherent in the early modern understanding of twinship is capitalized on by playwrights, as negative ideas about twins can be seen transitioning into tragic and tragicomic depictions of twinship. However, by building toward a positive, comic representation of twins, the work additionally suggests an alternate interpretation of twinship in this period, which appreciates and celebrates twins because of their difference. The volume will be of interest to those studying Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature in relation to the History of Emotions, the Body, and the Medical Humanities.

Speech Act Theory and Shakespeare

Speech Act Theory and Shakespeare
Author: Chahra Beloufa
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2024-05-28
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1040016537

Speech Act Theory and Shakespeare delves deeper than linguistic ornamentation to illuminate the complex dynamics of thanking as a significant speech act in Shakespearean plays. The word “thanks” appears nearly 400 times in 37 Shakespearean plays, calling for a careful investigation of its veracity as a speech act in the 16th-century setting. This volume combines linguistic analysis to explore the various uses of thanks, focusing on key thanking scenes across a spectrum of plays, including All’s Well That Ends Well, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Timon of Athens, The Winter’s Tale, and the Henriad. Shakespeare’s works indicate the act of thanking to be more than a normal part of dialogue; it is an artistic expression fraught with pitfalls similar to those of negative speech acts. The study aims to determine what compels the characters in Shakespeare to offer thanks and evaluates Shakespeare’s accomplishment in imbuing the word “thanks” with performance quality in the theatrical sphere. This work adds to our comprehension of Shakespearean plays and larger conversations on the challenges of language usage in theatrical and cultural settings by examining the convergence of gratitude with power dynamics, political intrigue, and interpersonal relationships, drawing on a multidisciplinary approach that includes pragmatics, philosophy, religion, and psychology.

Literature and Religious Experience

Literature and Religious Experience
Author: Matthew J. Smith
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2022-01-13
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1350193925

This book challenges the status quo of studies in literature and religion by returning to “experience” as a bridge between theory and practice. Essays focus on keywords of religious experience and demonstrate their applications in drama, fiction, and poetry. Each chapter explores the broad significance of its keyword as a category of psychological and social behavior and tracks its unique articulation by individual authors, including Conrad, Beecher Stowe and Melville. Together, the chapters construct a critical foundation for studying literature not only from the perspectives of theology and historicism but from the ways that literary experience reflects, reinforces, and sometimes challenges religious experience.

Shakespeare, 'Othello' and Domestic Tragedy

Shakespeare, 'Othello' and Domestic Tragedy
Author: Sean Benson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 136
Release: 2011-12-15
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1441137661

Often set in domestic environments and built around protagonists of more modest status than traditional tragic subjects, 'domestic tragedy' was a genre that flourished on the Renaissance stage from 1580-1620. Shakespeare, 'Othello', and Domestic Tragedy is the first book to examine Shakespeare's relationship to the genre by way of the King's and Chamberlain's Men's ownership and production of many of the domestic tragedies, and of the genre's extensive influence on Shakespeare's own tragedy, Othello. Drawing in part upon recent scholarship that identifies Shakespeare as a co-author of Arden of Faversham, Sean Benson demonstrates the extensive-even uncanny-ties between Othello and the domestic tragedies. Benson argues that just as Hamlet employs and adapts the conventions of revenge tragedy, so Othello can only be fully understood in terms of its exploitation of the tropes and conventions of domestic tragedy. This book explores not only the contexts and workings of this popular sub-genre of Renaissance drama but also Othello's secure place within it as the quintessential example of the form.

Shakespeare and Happiness

Shakespeare and Happiness
Author: Kathleen French
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 168
Release: 2022-02-27
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1000541592

Shakespeare and Happiness is a study of attitudes to happiness in the early modern period and in Shakespeare’s plays. It considers the conflicting influences of religion and Aristotelian philosophy in shaping attitudes to the possibility of attaining happiness. By being the first book to focus specifically on the representation of happiness in Shakespeare’s plays, it contributes to feminist approaches to Shakespeare by foregrounding the important role of women in showing the right way to live and achieve happiness. timely criticism, as it considers Shakespeare in the current context of the #MeToo movement providing new insights to studies of the emotions by approaching them from the perspective of research conducted by positive psychologists. This book takes an interdisciplinary approach that combines methodologies from literature, psychology philosophy, religion and history, emphasizing the richness and complexity of Shakespeare’s exploration of the nature of happiness.

Shakespeare and Wisdom

Shakespeare and Wisdom
Author: Unhae Park Langis
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2024-10-31
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9781399516563

[headline]Explores how Shakespeare uses global wisdom literatures to encourage spiritual and moral growth and the arts of living in a connected world This volume interweaves Shakespeare's wisdom with ancient spiritual practices and the insights of a post-secular age to explore a transhistorical space of sapient knowing and living. It argues that Shakespeare inherits and participates in global wisdom literature, speaking through women, philosophers and fools about the beauty, dignity and variety of the cosmos and its creatures. Beginning in the Mediterranean with classical, biblical and Egyptian wisdom, the collection then moves to the East to consider Sufi and Buddhist wisdom and then turns to the West to reflect on Indigenous science and ways of knowing. In pursuing the delight of heart, soul and understanding in the synaesthetic experience of theatre and the meditative space of poetry, sapiential Shakespeare explores knowledge, love, beauty, nature, will and power in conversation with multiple wisdom traditions. [bio]Unhae Park Langis is a scholar-seeker-activist and a former teacher of twenty years. She is the author of Passion, Prudence, and Virtue in Shakespearean Drama (2011). Her essays have appeared in Shakespeare Studies, EMLS, Upstart Crow and Literature Compass and other journals, as well as in recent collections such as Shakespeare and Virtue: A Handbook (2023) and Shakespeare's Virtuous Theatre: Power, Capacity, and the Good (2023). Julia Reinhard Lupton is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of California, Irvine. Her publications include Thinking with Shakespeare (2015); Shakespeare Dwelling (2018); Face to Face with Shakespeare (with Matthew Smith, 2019); Shakespeare and Virtue: A Handbook (with Donovan Sherman, 2023); and Shakespeare's Virtuous Theatre: Power, Capacity, and the Good (with Kent Lehnhof and Carolyn Sale, 2023).