Romance and Reformation: The Erasmian Spirit of Shakespeare's Measure for MeasureIt examines an assumption central to Shakespeare's inherited humanist tradition: that literature, and particularly drama, is capable of promoting a better society and it finds Shakespeare interrogating this assumption, asking whether drama that has been fashioned according to reformist principles of the great humanist educator Erasmus can, after all, achieve the remediating effects it seeks. |
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... moral philosophers ' injunction to " follow nature . " This book defines this hu- manist idea of nature , especially in relation- ship to art ( natura naturans ) , and traces the historical and philosophical lines it followed to reach ...
... moral philosophers ' injunction to " follow nature . " This book defines this hu- manist idea of nature , especially in relation- ship to art ( natura naturans ) , and traces the historical and philosophical lines it followed to reach ...
Page 18
... moral , and ethical benefits sought through anti - dogmatic dis- course , both stress that Christian humanist rhetoric was liberal , non - coercive , and communal ; that for the humanist scholar , " truth - seeking " consisted of ...
... moral , and ethical benefits sought through anti - dogmatic dis- course , both stress that Christian humanist rhetoric was liberal , non - coercive , and communal ; that for the humanist scholar , " truth - seeking " consisted of ...
Page 20
... moral , and rhetorical principle , it was believed to give coherence to all existence . Insofar as human beings were seen to draw artistic power from the creating force of nature ( natura na- turans ) , the concept of the Logos also ...
... moral , and rhetorical principle , it was believed to give coherence to all existence . Insofar as human beings were seen to draw artistic power from the creating force of nature ( natura na- turans ) , the concept of the Logos also ...
Page 21
... moral basis in nature that theatre can draw upon to repair a broken society . The Duke exhibits the qualities of spirit that a modern Erasmian , Vaclav Havel , cites as the natural ones necessary for restoring community : We must draw ...
... moral basis in nature that theatre can draw upon to repair a broken society . The Duke exhibits the qualities of spirit that a modern Erasmian , Vaclav Havel , cites as the natural ones necessary for restoring community : We must draw ...
Page 31
... moral ref- ormation , he explained in his Paraclesis ( 1516 ) , not by requiring assent to doctrine but by imparting moral understanding and desire through dramatic narrative : This philosophy , unlettered as it appears to these very ...
... moral ref- ormation , he explained in his Paraclesis ( 1516 ) , not by requiring assent to doctrine but by imparting moral understanding and desire through dramatic narrative : This philosophy , unlettered as it appears to these very ...
Contents
24 | |
Measure for Measure as Comic Romance | 55 |
Fornication and Calumny The Conceptual Structure of Measure for Measure | 69 |
Factionalism and Social Reform The Dilemma of Humanist Drama | 88 |
The Rhetoric of the Logos in Measure for Measure | 102 |
Redemption and Damnation Measure for Measure and Othello as Contrasting Paired Visions | 150 |
Notes | 157 |
Works Cited | 176 |
Index | 185 |
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Common terms and phrases
Act Five action Angelo and Isabella audience authority bed-trick calumny Cambridge characters Christ Christian humanism Christian humanist classical Claudio comedy comic romance context D. H. Lawrence death Desiderius Erasmus disguise divine Dollimore drama Duke Vincentio Duke's dynamic Edited Elizabethan eloquence enforcement English Erasmian Erasmus Erasmus's Escalus fiction fornication Friar Friar Lodowick gelo grace Heraclitean Heraclitus Hooker human humanist rhetoric Iago Isabella James Jesus John judgment justice and mercy Lady Folly language LB IV literal literary Logos London Lucio Mariana means Measure for Measure mediating method Midsummer Night's Dream mind mirror moral Moria natural law Othello paradox person persuasion philosophical play play's playwright principle Puritan reciprocity redemption Renaissance role Saint scene Scripture sense sexual Shakespeare Survey Sileni slander society soul speak spirit Studies syphilis theatre things Thomas tion tradition truth University Press Vienna virtue vision words York
Popular passages
Page 117 - That skins the vice o' the top. Go to your bosom ; Knock there ; and ask your heart what it doth know That's like my brother's fault ; if it confess A natural guiltiness such as is his, Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue Against my brother's life.
Page 61 - Heaven doth with us as we with torches do ; Not light them for themselves : for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike As if we had them not...
Page 42 - Do you hear, let them be well used ; for they are the abstract, and brief chronicles, of the time. After your death you were better have a bad epitaph, than their ill report while you live. Pol. My lord, I will use them according to their desert.
Page 82 - I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry : be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go : farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool ; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell.
Page 68 - But all the story of the night told over And all their minds transfigur'd so together, More witnesseth than fancy's images, And grows to something of great constancy ; But, howsoever, strange, and admirable.
Page 86 - But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. 37. For by thy words thou shall be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.
Page 166 - Some things she openeth by the sacred books of Scripture; some things by the glorious works of nature; with some things she inspireth them from above by spiritual influence; in some things she leadeth and traineth them only by worldly experience and practice.
Page 81 - In all speech, words and sense are as the body and the soul. The sense is as the life and soul of language, without which all words are dead.