This dissertation---"The Necessity of Affections: Shakespeare and the Politics of the Passions"---is a contribution to an important and interesting aspect of early modern thought. It examines the role of the passions or emotions in Shakespearean tragedy and in early modern politics. Shakespeare can be seen to share a perspective on tragedy and political thought with a number of other writers, some of whom were his contemporaries, and some of whom---like Thucydides and Tacitus---were classical writers. What these figures, here called 'politic historians,' have in common is an interest in using the passions as an explanatory category to reveal the states of mind of tyrants, princes and also other agents, including manipulative Machiavellians. Shakespeare's use of this politics of the passions is shown to be more acute and insightful than the rival treatments given by Stoicism, Hobbes and Machiavelli, in terms of explaining motives, agency and action. It is also argued that an understanding of the passions tells us something about tragedy, necessity and chance: namely, the need for realism about the dangers posed by those who seek to fashion or shape our minds. However, this dissertation proposes that this political realism does not go so far as to become the cynicism of realpolitik. A discussion of a number of important passages and themes in the tragedies---in particular, Hamlet, Macbeth and Coriolanus---shows how the notion of a rich and vividly articulated self plays a significant role in Shakespearean tragedy.

No description available.

Traditionally, Macbeth has been read as a morality tale about the perils of ambition. The question that has implicitly animated most treatments of the play is, "Why does Macbeth kill Duncan?" By shifting the emphasis away from Macbeth's motives for killing Duncan onto his inability to refrain from killing him, I draw attention to the striking fact that, in killing King Duncan, Macbeth acts against a fully considered better judgment not to. This suggests the possibility that Macbeth's much-discussed ambition can be understood as a subset of the broader theme of akrasia , the condition in which an agent is unable to perform an action he knows to be right. After identifying and exploring the theme of akrasia in several of Shakespeare's plays, I go on to situate Macbeth's murder of Duncan in the context of the long literary and philosophical debate on incontinence. I then suggest four interrelated explanations of Macbeth's akrasia. First, Macbeth's connection to the motivational conditions of his knowledge is shallow; he does not feel what he knows. Second, Macbeth's lack of self-control is habitual because his weak connection to the conative dimension of his knowledge prohibits him from appealing to techniques of skilled resistance. Third, his habitual lack of self-control renders him vulnerable to Lady Macbeth's taunts, which not only deplete the motivation supporting his better judgment but also prevent him from giving full deliberative weight to his better judgment. Finally, Macbeth also engages in a consistent pattern of self-deception that not only facilitates his akratic slaughter of King Duncan but also enables him to murder Banquo and MacDuff's family. My explanation of how Macbeth is able to act self-deceptively against his better evidence echoes my account of how he is able to act akratically against his better judgment: he does not feel what he knows.

William Shakespeare's plays, Richard II, 1 and 2 Henry IV and Henry V, form a tetralogy in which the conditions and nature of kingship are extensively explored. Richard II is an incapable ruler because his own desires are always uppermost in his mind while the welfare of the realm matters little to him. However, in spite of his faults, Richard II is a divinely ordained king, God's deputy on earth, and, therefore, he is the only legitimate monarch. When Henry IV usurps Richard II and has him murdered, he commits an unforgivable crime. Thus, in spite of the fact that he is a more capable ruler, his reign is plagued by rebellion and civil war. Only his son, Henry V, a legitimate ruler, can restore order to the chaotic nation. This study is an analysis of the reigns of these three monarchs. It is based on four aspects of the text: dramatic action, speeches on kingship, figurative patterns, and thematic movements.Taken as a unit, the four plays create a portrait of the ideal "statesman-king"; viewed individually, they produce added insight into the variations in interpretations of inadequate king, Henry IV, who is troubled human. of his kingship, king and its occupant. Richard II is an but a very talented poet, in contrast to a capable ruler, but a guilt-ridden, Henry V can be characterized only in terms as he is forced to subject his personal of the office self to his political role in order to be a successful monarch.

This thesis considered seven aspects of the relationship of the tragic hero with his world in the four major tragedies of Shakespear—Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear—and in four tragedies of Sophocles—Oedipus, Antigone, Ajax and Women of Trachis. All the plays with the exception of Women of Trachis, were found depicting a hero who represented his society and had freedom of choice and action, but whose mistaken view of himself and his role in life led to conflict with the cosmos, to rebellion and a trial by suffering which resulted in a kind of insanity, and finally to self-recognition through submission and purgation.The thesis also discussed Sophocles’ and Shakespeare’s concern with justice as reflected in their use of trial imagery, and Shakespear’s indebtedness to the classic chain of being concept and to the Platonic emphasis on reason and courage in a hero, or leader.

No description available.

The nature and extent of classical rhetoric's influence on subsequent ages has been the focus of much recent study. Scholars have been concerned with how classical authors, particularly Cicero and Quintilian, emerged in educational and rhetorical theories of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and later centuries. Despite this flurry of research, a great deal of Quintilian's enduring legacy remains unknown, particularly in seventeenth-century England. "Quintilian's Influence on Obadiah Walker," then, extends our knowledge of Quintilian's influence into the seventeenth century by looking at one seventeenth-century thinker in particular, Obadiah Walker. More specifically, this thesis compares and analyzes the authors' primary works: Quintilian's Institutio oratoria and Walker's Some Instructions Concerning the Art of Oratory and Of Education, Especially of Young Gentlemen. This study investigates Quintilian's and Walker's similarities and differences within three comparable areas: their educational systems, their theories and placement of rhetoric in their systems, and their educational purposes. Within these areas, this study questions how and to what extent did Walker appropriate Quintilian's ideas when crafting his two educational/rhetorical treatises? The comparison of the primary texts manifests some specific and general conclusions. There are two specific conclusions. First, Walker is heavily indebted to Quintilian; he liberally adopts and modifies Quintilian's ideas in nearly every facet of his works. Second, Walker offers a seventeenth-century student a digest and modern version of Quintilian's Institutio. Moreover, this study offers some general conclusions. First, it demonstrates that Quintilian's influence extends into the late seventeenth century, at least in the works of one writer of the era. Next, it argues that if Quintilian's treatise lost favor, at least it did not do so completely. And finally, it contributes another story to classical rhetoric's incomplete history. / Graduation date: 1996

Typescript / Errata slip inserted / Bibliography: leaves 360-385 / viii, 385 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, 1988

A presente dissertação consiste em um estudo das imagens simbólicas dos Sonetos de Shakespeare sob a luz das teorias modernas e contemporâneas do imaginário, mito e símbolo de autores como C.G.Jung, P. Ricoeur e G. Durand. Procura mostrar parte do processo criativo Shakespeareano identificando mitos pessoais, imagens recorrentes, assim como arquétipos e padrões arquetípicos presentes nos sonetos. Divide-se em três capítulos. O primeiro, a Introdução, apresenta Shakespeare como poeta e resume algumas abordagens críticas e os problemas decorrentes que foram debatidos até então. Antecipa ainda, a discussão sobre a importância do imaginário do leitor no processo hermenêutico. O segundo capítulo, O imaginário e o imaginário de Shakespeare, divide-se em duas partes. Na primeira, apresento os campos onde literatura, mito, e símbolo relacionam-se entre si, assim como a teoria da metáfora de P. Ricoeur. A segunda parte consiste em dados gerais do imaginário simbólico dos 154 sonetos, cuja base é uma versão moderna da edição de 1609 (conhecida como The Quarto), com a análise de dois sonetos (28,146) que funciona como modelo para as demais, integrantes do terceiro capítulo. Finalmente, o capítulo 3, A hermenêutica das imagens simbólicas dos sonetos de Shakespeare, traz o estudo propriamente dito, e apresenta as imagens recorrentes, arquétipos, padrões arquetípicos e mitos pessoais encontrados nos sonetos. A conclusão reflete a tentativa de mostrar a importância das imagens simbólicas para os Sonetos, assim como apontar formas através das quais os imaginários de autor e leitor misturam-se, gerando significação. / This thesis aims at studying the symbolical imagery of Shakespeare’s Sonnets in the light of modern theories on the imaginary, symbolism, and myth put forward by authors such as C.G. Jung, P. Ricoeur, and G. Durand. It attempts at showing a part of Shakespeare’s creative process by identifying personal myths, recurrent images, as well as archetypes and archetypal patterns inherent in the Sonnets. The work is divided into three chapters. The first chapter presents Shakespeare as a poet and summarizes some critical approaches and consequent problems that have been part of the Sonnets´ critical heritage. It also anticipates the discussion on the importance of the reader’s imaginary in the hermeneutic process. Chapter two is divided in two segments. The first, where I present the grounds on which myth, literature and symbols are related, as well as Ricoeur’s theory of the metaphor; and the second, that consists of general imaginary symbolic data about the 154 sonnets, approached through a modernized version of the 1609 Quarto. In addition, there comes the analysis of sonnets 28 and 146, as models for the others to come in chapter 3. Finally, chapter three The Hermeneutics of Symbolical Imagery in Shakespeare’s Sonnets, displays the study of recurrent images, archetypes, archetypal patterns and personal myths within Shakespeare’s Sonnets. The Conclusion reflects upon the work’s attempt at showing the importance of symbolic images for the study of the sonnets, as well as considers some of the ways through which the imaginary of the writer and that of the reader bind, generating meaning.

This thesis is a critical study of the theme of shame in Shakespeare. The first chapter defines the senses in which shame is used. Chapter Two analyses the workings of shame in pre-renaissance literature. The argument sets aside the increasingly discredited shame-culture versus guilt-culture antithesis still often applied to classical and Christian Europe; then classical and Christian shame are compared. Chapter Three focuses on shame in the English Renaissance, with illustrations from Spenser, Marlowe, Jonson, and Milton. Attention is also paid to the cultural context, for instance, to the shaming sanctions employed by the church courts. It is argued that, paradoxically, the humanist aspirations of this period made men and women more vulnerable to shame: more aware of falling short of ideals and open to disappointment and the reproach of self and others. The fourth chapter is an introductory account of Shakespearean shame; examples are drawn from the plays and poems preceding the period of the major tragedies, circa. 1602-9. This lays the groundwork, both conceptually and in terms of Shakespeare's development, for the main part of the thesis, Part Two, which offers detailed readings of Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus. In Each case, a consideration of the theme of shame illuminates the text in question in new ways. For example, and exploration of shame in Hamlet uncovers a neglected spiritual dimension; and it is argued that, despite critical tradition, shame, rather than jealousy, is the key to Othello, and that Antony and Cleopatra establishes the attraction and limitation of shamelessness. The last Chapter describes Shakespeare's distinctive and ultimately Christian vision of shame. In a tail-piece it is suggested that this account of Shakespearean shame casts an intriguing light on a little-known interpretation of Shakespeare's last days by the historian E.R.C. Brinkworth.