Shakespeare the Thinker
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.70 (831 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0300136293 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 448 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-11-18 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Nuttall’s study of Shakespeare’s intellectual preoccupations is a literary tour de force and comes to crown the distinguished career of a Shakespeare scholar. The author does not limit discussion to moments of crucial intellection but gives himself ample space in which to get at the distinctive essence of each work.Much recent historicist criticism has tended to flatten” Shakespeare by confining him to the thought-clichés of his time, and this in its turn has led to an implicitly patronizing view of him as unthinkingly racist, sexist, and so on. Certain questions engross Shakespeare from his early plays to the late romances: the nature of motive, cause, personal identity and relation, the proper status of imagination, ethics and subjectivity, language and its capacity to occlude and to communicate. Yet Shakespeare’s thought, Nuttall demonstrates, is anything but static. Nuttall allows us to hear and appreciate the emergent cathedral choir of play speaking to play. It is also
Into the mind of Shakespeare Amazon Customer Fantastic read. Focuses on 12-15 of the plays. Couldn't put this down. Highly recommended.
For example, he observes, Shakespeare often uses minor characters who form "islands" in the drama to think through philosophical ideas. His study is rich in unexpected juxtapositions: Hippolyta, of "A Midsummer Night’s Dream," finds herself in casual conversation with David Hume, and Titus Andronicus is seen in the context of "Goodfellas." The analysis never pulls too far away from the action onstage; indeed, Nuttall painstakingly shows Shakespeare’s skill at negotiating abstract ideas through suspense, conflict, and character. From The New Yorker Nuttall, who died earlier this year, and who trained in both philosophy and literature, here traces ideas about motivation, identity, speech, and symbol in Shakespeare’s plays. The Shakespeare who emerges here is a "systematically elusive" intelligence, whose brilliance lay in his ability to join "verisimilitude to wonder." Copyright © 2007