Shakespeare on Love. The Sonnets and Plays in Relation to Plato s Symposium, Alchemy, Christianity and Renaissance Neo-Platonism.

Gray, Ronald:

ISBN 10: 1443827118 / ISBN 13: 9781443827119

Published by Cambridge Scholars, 2011

About this Item

xv 113p hardback, like new, free from wear, black cloth with glossy black jacket, strong binding and sharp corners, pages clean and neat, free from marks and notes, excellent unused copy of an uncommon title, personal inscription by the author on the endpaper Language: English Weight (g): 236. Seller Inventory # 239657

Bibliographic Details

Title: Shakespeare on Love. The Sonnets and Plays ...

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars

Publication Date: 2011

Binding: Hardback

Condition: As New

Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included

Signed: Signed by Author(s)

Edition: 1st Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

Dr Ronald Gray, Fellow of Emmanuel College, lectured at Cambridge University on German Literature and Philosophy for 33 years, and now expands his article, “Will in the Universe: Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Plato’s Symposium, Alchemy and Renaissance Neo-Platonism,” published in Shakespeare Survey 59 (Cambridge University Press, 2006). This developed from his Goethe the Alchemist: A Study of Alchemical Symbolism in Goethe’s Literary and Scientific Works, 1952, greeted on publication as “a major contribution to Goethe Studies.” Diotima’s vision of universal love in The Symposium is echoed not only in Castiglione’s The Courtier but in alchemy, in its symbolical sense; these, together with Christian ideas combined in Shakespeare’s imagination, strongly influenced the Sonnets. Where possible, Shakespeare inserted themes of the Sonnets in his plays. The result is a paradoxical combination of mysticism, sometimes erotic, in the Sonnets, with real situations and real lovers in both Sonnets and plays. The supreme realisation of the Dark Lady is Cleopatra, but the Lady also has mythic dimensions.

About the Author:

Ronald Gray lectured on German Literature and Philosophy at Cambridge University. He is the author of many books on Goethe, Brecht, Kafka and others, as well as a survey of twentieth century German literature. The present work developed out of his study of the influence of alchemy on Goethe’s literary and scientific works, reissued by Cambridge University Press in its Library Collection of Books of Enduring Scholarly Value.