Shakespeare and Montaigne share a grounded, genial sense of the lived reality of human experience, as well as a surprising depth of engagement with history, literature and philosophy. With celebrated subtlety and incisive humour, both authors investigate abiding questions of epistemology, psychology, theology, ethics, politics and aesthetics. In this collection, distinguished contributors consider these influential, much-beloved figures in light of each other. The English playwright and the French essayist, each in his own fashion, reflect on and evaluate the Renaissance, the Reformation and the rise of new modern perspectives many of us now might readily recognise as our own.
Introduces and explores a wide range of fresh approaches to comparative study of Shakespeare and Montaigne.
Shakespeare and Montaigne share a grounded, genial sense of the lived reality of human experience, as well as a surprising depth of engagement with history, literature and philosophy. With celebrated subtlety and incisive humour, both authors investigate abiding questions of epistemology, psychology, theology, ethics, politics and aesthetics. In this collection, distinguished contributors consider these influential, much-beloved figures in light of each other. The English playwright and the French essayist, each in his own fashion, reflect on and evaluate the Renaissance, the Reformation and the rise of new modern perspectives many of us now might readily recognise as our own.
| Acknowledgements |
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vii | |
| Notes on Contributors |
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x | |
| Preface: Reading Montaigne by Colin Burrow |
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xv | |
| Introduction: Shakespeare and Montaigne: A Critical History |
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1 | (27) |
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| Introduction: Shakespeare and Montaigne as Thought-Experiment |
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28 | (31) |
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1 Of Birds and Bees: Montaigne, Shakespeare and the Rhetoric of Imitation |
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59 | (19) |
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2 The Nature of Presence: Facing Violence in Montaigne and Shakespeare |
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78 | (12) |
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3 Narcissism, Epochal Change and `Public Necessity' in Richard II and `Of Custom, and Not Easily Changing an Accepted Law' |
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90 | (15) |
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4 Shakespeare, Montaigne and Ricœur: Identity as Narrative |
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105 | (18) |
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5 Genre and Gender in Montaigne and Shakespeare |
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123 | (17) |
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6 Shakespeare, Montaigne and Moral Luck |
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140 | (26) |
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7 Cavell's Tragic Scepticism and the Comedy of the Cuckold: Othello and Montaigne Revisited |
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166 | (14) |
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8 Feeling Indifference: Flaying Narratives in Montaigne and Shakespeare |
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180 | (18) |
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9 On Belief in Montaigne and Shakespeare |
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198 | (18) |
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10 Making Sense of `To be or not to be' |
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216 | (17) |
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11 `The web of our life is of a mingled yarn': Mixed Worlds and Kinds in Montaigne's `We Taste Nothing Purely' and Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well |
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233 | (13) |
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12 Radical Neo-Paganism: The Transmission of Discontinuous Identity from Plutarch to Montaigne to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra |
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246 | (17) |
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13 Montaigne, Shakespeare and the Metamorphosis of Comedy and Tragedy |
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263 | (19) |
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14 Montaigne's Essais, Shakespeare's Trials and Other Experiments of Moment |
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282 | (14) |
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15 Montaigne's Shakespeare: The Tempest as Test-case |
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296 | (30) |
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16 Falstaff's Party: Shakespeare, Montaigne and Their Liberal Censors |
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326 | (48) |
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| Afterword: A Philosophical Shakespeare or a Dramatic Montaigne? |
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374 | (10) |
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| Afterword: A Philosophical Montaigne and a Dramatic Shakespeare? |
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384 | (8) |
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| Bibliography |
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392 | (43) |
| Index |
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435 | |
Lars Engle, Chapman Professor of English at Tulsa, is the author of Shakespearean Pragmatism, coauthor of Studying Shakespeare's Contemporaries, and coeditor of English Renaissance Drama: A Norton Anthology. His essays have appeared in PMLA, Modern Philology, Shakespeare Survey, Shakespeare Quarterly, Shakespeare Studies, SEL, and in numerous other journals and essay collections. He's a past Trustee of the Shakespeare Association of America.
Patrick Gray is Associate Professor of English Studies and Director of Liberal Arts at Durham University. He is the author of Shakespeare and the Fall of the Roman Republic: Selfhood, Stoicism, and Civil War (2019), editor of Shakespeare and the Ethics of War (2019), and co-editor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Ethics (2014). His essays have appeared in Shakespeare Survey, Shakespeare Jahrbuch, Skene, JMEMS, Comparative Drama, and Textual Practice.
William M. Hamlin is Professor of English at Washington State University and Bornander Distinguished Professor in the WSU Honors College. His books include Tragedy and Scepticism in Shakespeare's England (Palgrave, 2005), Montaigne's English Journey (Oxford, 2013), and, most recently, Montaigne: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2020). A recipient of Guggenheim and British Academy fellowships, he has published essays in Renaissance Quarterly, English Literary Renaissance, Shakespeare Studies, Montaigne Studies, and many other journals.
