Notes
1.
Compare Hamlet II.ii.423-514, and III.ii.1-43; A Midsummer Night's
Dream I.ii.1-97, and V.i; the Induction to The Taming of the Shrew, especially ii.12-138; the "Preface" to Troilus and Cressida and Prologue 22-25; Henry V II.31-32, 39-40, III.34-35, IV.46-53, V.1-6, and Epilogue; Epigraph
to Venus and Adonis; the Induction to 2 Henry IV1-22; and the Prologue to Henry VIII. All references to the plays are to the Penguin Complete Works
( New York: Viking, 1969),
Alfred Harbage, general editor.
2.
Henry VIII, Prologue, 22. Editors generally gloss the "understanding" as
a jibe at the expense of the "understanders" or groundlings, but the context
allows a serious twist to the trite jest.
3.
The exchange between Brutus and Cassius that turns upon the phrase
"the eye sees not itself" ( Julius Caesar I.ii) seems to be modeled upon Socrates' conversation with Alcibiades in Plato First Alcibiades. The same
dialogue provides the reference for Ulysses' allusion to a "book" written by
"a strange fellow" in Troilus and Cressida (III.iii.95-111). Aristotle is mentioned by name in Troilus and Cressida (II.ii.166) and in The Taming of the
Shrew (I.i.32).
4.
Roy Battenhouse, Shakespearean Tragedy: Its Art and Its Christian Premises ( Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1971), pp. 345-348, has argued rather convincingly that Menenius's belly fable in Coriolanus depends
upon the elaboration of the body-city analogy worked out in the Policraticus
V.2.
5.
Among those who have contributed to the study of the political implications of the plays are Allan Bloom with
Harry V. Jaffa, Shakespeare's Politics
( New York: Basic Books, 1964); Michael Platt, Rome and Romans According to Shakespeare (1976; 2d ed., Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1982); Howard B. White, Copp'd Hills Toward Heaven: Shakespeare and
the Classical Polity ( The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970); George Anastaplo, "Prudence and Mortality in Shakespeare's Tragedies," I University of Pittsburgh Law Review, 40 (Summer 1979), 730-745, and The Artist as Thinker.
From Shakespeare to Joyce ( Chicago: Swallow Press, 1981). The publication
in American Political Science Review (APSR) of an essay by Bloom on Othello
and Jaffa's interpretation of Lear touched off something of a controversy in
which the literary critic Sigurd Burckhardt quarreled with Bloom through
the next issues of APSR (see Burckhardt, "English Bards and APSR Reviewers," 54 [ 1960], 158-166; Bloom, "Political Philosophy and Poetry," 54 [ 1960], 457-464; Burckhardt, "On Reading Ordinary Prose: A Reply to Allan Bloom," 54 [ 1960], 471-473). Burckhardt attacked some of the particular readings
proposed by Bloom and Jaffa, but Bloom's complaint notwithstanding, I
cannot see that Burckhardt questions the validity of an approach that emphasizes political implications. In any event, Burckhardt book
-24-
Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information:
Book title: Shakespeare as Political Thinker.
Edition: 2nd.
Contributors: John E. Alvis - Editor, Thomas G. West - Editor.
Publisher: ISI Books.
Place of publication: Wilmington, DE.
Publication year: 2000.
Page number: 24.
This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.
One moment ...
- Georgia
- Arial
- Times New Roman
- Verdana
- Courier/monospaced
Reset