Routledge companion to Shakespeare and philosophy

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Shakespeare, Montaigne, and philosophical anti-philosophy / Philip Smallwood -- The (new and old) metaphysical reading of Shakespeare / Géza Kállay -- On the kinship of Shakespeare and Plato / Daryl Kaytor -- Lear as a tragedy of errors : "He hath ever but slenderly known himself" / Garry L. Hagberg -- Figures unethical : circumlocution and evasion in act I of Macbeth / Scott F. Crider -- Conversational perversions, implicature and sham cancelling in Othello / Craig Bourne and Emily Caddick Bourne -- "Seize it, if thou dar'st" : three types of imperative conditional in Richard II / Borut Trpin -- The sonnets and attunement / Maximillian de Gaynesford -- 'To thine own self be true' : 'truthiness', Shakespeare, Eco and the open work / Michael Troy Shell -- Wittgenstein's enigmatic remarks on Shakespeare / Wolfgang Huemer -- Shakespeare, intention, and the ethical force of the involuntary / Christopher Crosbie -- "Thou weep'st to make them drink" : hospitality and mourning in Timon of Athens / Sophie Emma Battell -- Shakespeare, moral judgements and moral realism / Matthew H. Kramer -- Blindness and double vision in Richard III : Zamir on Shakespeare on moral philosophy / Rafe McGregor -- Horatio's stoic philosophy / Jan H. Blits -- Sovereignty, social contract and the state of nature in King Lear / Stella Achilleos -- Justice : some reflections on Measure for measure / Tzachi Zamir -- Kiss me k' : engendering judgment in Kant's 1st critique and Shakespeare's the Taming of the shrew / Jennifer Ann Bates -- The duty of enquiry, or why Othello was a fool / Veli Mitova -- The evil deceiver and the evil truth teller : Descartes, Iago, and scepticism / Dianne Rothleder -- Climates of trust in Macbeth / Julia Reinhard Lupton -- The sceptic's surrender : believing partly / Anita Gilman Sherman -- "Nothing will come out of nothing" : existential dimension of interpersonal relationships in King Lear / Katarzyna Burzynska -- "And nothing brings me all things" : Shakespeare's philosophy of nothing / Jessica Chiba -- Shakespeare and the absurd / Raymond Angelo Belliotti -- Nietzsche's Hamlet puzzle : life affirmation in the birth of tragedy / Katie Brennan -- Time and the other in Cymbeline / James A. Knapp -- Shakespeare and selfhood / Kevin Curran -- Shakespeare and the mind / Miranda Anderson -- Macbeth and the self / Colin McGinn -- "Hit it, hit it, hit it" : rigid designation in Love's Labour's Lost / Andrew Cutrofello -- Love, identity and the way of ideas in Twelfth Night / Robin Le Poidevin -- A taste for slaughter : Stephen Gosson, Titus Andronicus, and the appeal of evil / Joel Elliot Slotkin -- Grotesque laughter as a coping mechanism in Titus Andronicus / Adele-France Jourdan -- Seduced by romanticism : re-imagining Shakespearean catharsis / Patrick Gray -- Beauty and time in the sonnets / Peter Lamarque -- Role-playing on stage / D.H. Mellor -- Building character : Shakespearean characters and their instantiations in the worlds of performances / E.M. Dadlez -- Shakespeare's theatrical openings / James R. Hamilton -- Shakespeare's embodied stoicism / Donovan Sherman -- The history plays : fiction or non-fiction? / Derek Matravers.

"Iago's 'I am not what I am' epitomises how Shakespeare's work is rich in philosophy, from issues of deception and moral deviance to those concerning the complex nature of the self, the notions of being and identity, and the possibility or impossibility of self-knowledge and knowledge of others. The Routledge Companion to Shakespeare and Philosophy examines the following important topics: - What roles can be played in an approach to Shakespeare by drawing on philosophical frameworks and the work of philosophers? - What can philosophical theories of meaning and communication show about the dynamics of Shakespearean interactions, and vice versa? - How are notions such as political and social obligation, justice, equality, love, agency, and the ethics of interpersonal relationships demonstrated in Shakespeare's works? - What do the plays and poems invite us to say about the nature of knowledge, belief, doubt, deception and epistemic responsibility? - How can the ways in which Shakespeare's characters behave illuminate existential issues concerning meaning, absurdity, death and nothingness? - What might Shakespeare's characters and their actions show about the nature of the self, the mind, and the identity of individuals? - How can Shakespeare's works inform philosophical approaches to notions such as beauty, humour, horror and tragedy? - How do Shakespeare's works illuminate philosophical questions about the nature of fiction, the attitudes and expectations involved in engagement with theatre, and the role of acting and actors in creating representations? The Routledge Companion to Shakespeare and Philosophy is essential reading for students and researchers in aesthetics, philosophy of literature and philosophy of theatre"--