Reading Shakespeare through Philosophy: 09 (Routledge Studies in Shakespeare) - Hardcover

Saval, Peter Kishore

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415709024 ISBN 13: 9780415709026

Publisher: Routledge, 2014

Synopsis

Reading Shakespeare through Philosophy advocates that the beauty of Shakespearean drama is inseparable from its philosophical power. Shakespeare’s plays make demands on us even beyond our linguistic attention and historical empathy: they require thinking, and the concepts of philosophy can provide us with tools to aid us in that thinking.

This volume examines how philosophy can help us to re-imagine Shakespeare’s treatment of individuality, character, and destiny, particularly at certain moments in a play when a character’s relationship to space or time becomes an enigma to us. The author focuses on the dramatization of seemingly magical relationships between the individual and the cosmos, exploring and rethinking the meanings of 'individual', 'cosmos' and 'magic' through a conceptually acute reading of Shakespeare's plays. This book draws upon a variety of thinkers including Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz and Kant, in search of a revitalized philosophical criticism of Julius Caesar, Love’s Labor’s Lost, The Merchant of Venice, Timon of Athens, and Twelfth Night.

About this title

About the Author

Peter Kishore Saval is Assistant Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature at Brown University, US

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0415709024
• ISBN 13: 9780415709026
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 190