Shakespeare and the Reason: A Study of the Tragedies and the Problem Plays'Mr Hawkes is a good critic, oriented towards history of ideas. He operates on the formula that Shakespeare was interested in the available distinctions between discursive and intuitive reason, and disliked a growing tendency for the first to be thought of as manly and the second effeminate. One sees how this action-contemplation polarity works, in Hamlet for instance, and Mr Hawkes thinks the kind of choices forced on tragic heroes can be better understood in terms of it.' Frank Kermode, New Statesman. In the seven plays on which the book concentrates, Terence Hawkes finds Shakespeare investigating the operation of two opposed forms of reason, and constructing dramatic metaphors such as the opposition between appearance and reality, or that between true 'manliness' and its false counterpart, which express to the full the tragic nature of the situation. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 67
Page 2
... sense rather different from that implied by his use of the same word). In order to complete a full contemporary picture of the end and purpose of the faculties in question two other terms will be needed and 'appearance' and 'reality ...
... sense rather different from that implied by his use of the same word). In order to complete a full contemporary picture of the end and purpose of the faculties in question two other terms will be needed and 'appearance' and 'reality ...
Page 7
... sense, the concept that there are two modes of perception, one rational, one intuitive, has always provided a symmetrical configuration of human experience; it embraces the paradox of complementary-yet-opposed states of being: earthly ...
... sense, the concept that there are two modes of perception, one rational, one intuitive, has always provided a symmetrical configuration of human experience; it embraces the paradox of complementary-yet-opposed states of being: earthly ...
Page 9
... sense that it has a less exalted purpose. It depends on sense-data for its operation and must work its way by those means from premiss to conclusion until it reaches a limited goal of contingent truth. It is discursive in operation ...
... sense that it has a less exalted purpose. It depends on sense-data for its operation and must work its way by those means from premiss to conclusion until it reaches a limited goal of contingent truth. It is discursive in operation ...
Page 10
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Contents
1 | |
2 Hamlet | 39 |
3
The Problem Plays | 72 |
4
Othello | 100 |
5
Macbeth | 124 |
6 King Lear | 160 |
Conclusion | 194 |
Index | 203 |
Other editions - View all
Shakespeare and the Reason: A Study of the Tragedies and the Problem Plays Terence Hawkes Limited preview - 2004 |
Shakespeare and the Reason: A Study of the Tragedies and the Problem Plays Terence Hawkes Limited preview - 2013 |
Shakespeare and the Reason: A Study of the Tragedies and the Problem Plays Terence Hawkes No preview available - 2013 |
Common terms and phrases
acceptance action Alfred Harbage Angels appearance and reality Aquinas argument becomes Bertram Brabantio Claudius Claudius’s confined conflict Cordelia Court Cressida death deceived Desdemona devilish discursive divine dramatic Duncan’s Edgar Edmund Elizabethan equivocation evil express fact faculty final finally finds first Fool fulfil Ghost Gloucester God’s Goneril Goneril and Regan Hamlet heaven higher honour human Iago Iago’s idea involves Isabella kind King Lear L. C. Knights Lady Macbeth later Lear’s lies London madness man’s manliness means Measure for Measure mercy metaphor mind mind’s mode murder nature Neo-platonic Nevertheless non-rational notion opposed opposition Othello perhaps play’s plot Polonius problem plays prophecies rational reason and intuition reflect result reveals role says scientific seems sense Shakespeare significance Significantly situation sort soul speaks speech spiritual stage structure suggests things thinking thou tragedy tragic Troilus Troilus and Cressida truth values Wilson Knight Witches words