Shakespeare's Tragic SkepticismYale University Press, 2008 M10 1 - 304 páginas Readers of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies have long noted the absence of readily explainable motivations for some of Shakespeare’s greatest characters: why does Hamlet delay his revenge for so long? Why does King Lear choose to renounce his power? Why is Othello so vulnerable to Iago’s malice? But while many critics have chosen to overlook these omissions or explain them away, Millicent Bell demonstrates that they are essential elements of Shakespeare’s philosophy of doubt. Examining the major tragedies, Millicent Bell reveals the persistent strain of philosophical skepticism. Like his contemporary, Montaigne, Shakespeare repeatedly calls attention to the essential unknowability of our world. In a period of social, political, and religious upheaval, uncertainty hovered over matters great and small—the succession of the crown, the death of loved ones from plague, the failure of a harvest. Tumultuous social conditions raised ultimate questions for Shakespeare, Bell argues, and ultimately provoked in him a skepticism which casts shadows of existential doubt over his greatest masterpieces. |
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... tended to confine and reduce their variousness and contradictions.There has always been a simplifying readiness to impose the critic's own con- ix ventional ideas about life and its meaning upon Shakespeare— to Preface.
... tended to confine and reduce their variousness and contradictions.There has always been a simplifying readiness to impose the critic's own con- ix ventional ideas about life and its meaning upon Shakespeare— to Preface.
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Millicent Bell. ventional ideas about life and its meaning upon Shakespeare— to make expectable, generally consoling stories out of the strange sequences of episode and language that actually present themselves. But those plausible ...
Millicent Bell. ventional ideas about life and its meaning upon Shakespeare— to make expectable, generally consoling stories out of the strange sequences of episode and language that actually present themselves. But those plausible ...
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... Meaning ( ), that Shakespeare's complexity was more than the ''ambivalence'' prized by the New Criticism. It was, Rabkin suggested, a species of ''complementarity'' analogous to the state of matter described by the physicist ...
... Meaning ( ), that Shakespeare's complexity was more than the ''ambivalence'' prized by the New Criticism. It was, Rabkin suggested, a species of ''complementarity'' analogous to the state of matter described by the physicist ...
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... meaning of cause for ordinary men and women. I have trusted my feeling that the plays richly incorporate anawarenessofmanyspecific historicissues thatentwinewith more general problems. Mundane conditions of shifting social power, or of ...
... meaning of cause for ordinary men and women. I have trusted my feeling that the plays richly incorporate anawarenessofmanyspecific historicissues thatentwinewith more general problems. Mundane conditions of shifting social power, or of ...
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... meaning of Shakespeare's plays as of other works of the literary imagination. But the debate still waged about the role of ''subversion'' seems unresolvable to me, for I believe that the complex of dominant orthodoxy is not easily ...
... meaning of Shakespeare's plays as of other works of the literary imagination. But the debate still waged about the role of ''subversion'' seems unresolvable to me, for I believe that the complex of dominant orthodoxy is not easily ...
Contenido
2 Othellos Jealousy | |
3 Unaccommodated Lear | |
4 Macbeths Deeds | |
The Roman Frame | |
Selected Bibliography | |
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Términos y frases comunes
action actor already Antony appears asks audience become beginning believe body bring Brutus Caesar called Cassio cause character Cleopatra comes continue Cordelia course crime critics daughters death deed denies Desdemona different doubt Duncan earlier effect evidence expect expressed fact faith false father feel find first follow force future ghost give Hamlet hand hear heart Holinshed human Iago Iago’s idea identity imagination Kent killed kind King Lear Lady language Lear’s lives look lost Macbeth madness meaning merely mind Montaigne murder nature never observed off once Othello perhaps play plot present reason reference relation remark reminds represented revenge role royal says scene seems seen sense Shake Shakespeare skepticism social soliloquy sometimes speaks stage story suggested tells theater things thou thought tion tragedy true truth witchcraft witches witnesses