Shakespeare and the Reason: A Study of the Tragedies and the Problem PlaysRoutledge, 2013 M10 11 - 224 pages '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. |
Other editions - View all
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 Limited preview - 2004 |
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 activities Angels appearance argues argument aspect becomes beginning called cause claim Claudius concept concerned constitutes Cordelia course Court deal death deceived Desdemona effect Elizabethan equivocation evil exists express extent face fact faculty finally finds follow Fool force gives Hamlet heaven higher honour human Iago Iago's idea intuitive involves Justice kind King knowledge Lady later Lear Lear's less lies London looks lower Macbeth madness man's manliness manner matter means Measure mind mode moral murder nature needs Nevertheless notion opposed opposition Othello perhaps play play's plot position present problem question rational reached reality reason result reveals role says seems seen sense Shakespeare similar simple situation sort soul speaks speech spiritual stage statement structure suggests takes things thinking thought tragedy Troilus true truth values Witches