Discovering the Subject in Renaissance England [Hardcover]

An exploration of the 'subject' (private self and public citizen) as object of discovery in Renaissance writing.When Hamlet complains that Guildenstern 'would pluck out the heart of my mystery,' he imagines an encounter that recurs insistently in the discourses of early modern England: the struggle by one man to discover the secrets in another's heart. Elizabeth Hanson examines the records of state torture, plays by Shakespeare and Jonson, 'cony-catching' pamphlets and Francis Bacon's philosophical writing to demonstrate a reconceptualising of the 'subject' in both the political and philosophical sense of the term.When Hamlet complains that Guildenstern 'would pluck out the heart of my mystery,' he imagines an encounter that recurs insistently in the discourses of early modern England: the struggle by one man to discover the secrets in another's heart. Elizabeth Hanson examines the records of state torture, plays by Shakespeare and Jonson, 'cony-catching' pamphlets and Francis Bacon's philosophical writing to demonstrate a reconceptualising of the 'subject' in both the political and philosophical sense of the term.When Hamlet complains that Guildenstern would pluck out the heart of my mystery, he imagines an encounter that recurs insistently in the discourses of early modern England: the struggle by one man to discover the secrets in another's heart. Elizabeth Hanson examines the records of state torture, plays by Shakespeare and Jonson, cony-catching pamphlets and Francis Bacon's philosophical writing to demonstrate a reconceptualizing of the subject in both the political and philosophical sense of the term.Introduction; 1. Torture and truth; 2. Brothers of the state; 3. Authors and others; 4. Francis Bacon and the discovering subject; Notes. Elizabeth Hanson's compelling study provides that intellectual fascination characteristic of deconstructive tactics adroitly executed, particularly those of the 'metaphysical' stamp which yoke through rhetorical violenc lc&