Shakespeare's Humanism [Paperback]

This book argues that the idea of a universal human nature was as important to Shakespeare as it was to every other Renaissance writer.Shakespeare's Humanism analyses a number of key Shakespeare plays, as well as works by Shakespeare's contemporaries, to offer a methodology for interpreting this literature, both on the page and in the theatre. Renaissance humanists believed that if you want to build a just society you must begin with the facts of human nature. Headlam Wells argues that the idea of a universal human nature was as important to Shakespeare as it was to every other Renaissance writer, and therefore challenges the central, defining principle of postmodern Shakespeare criticism.Shakespeare's Humanism analyses a number of key Shakespeare plays, as well as works by Shakespeare's contemporaries, to offer a methodology for interpreting this literature, both on the page and in the theatre. Renaissance humanists believed that if you want to build a just society you must begin with the facts of human nature. Headlam Wells argues that the idea of a universal human nature was as important to Shakespeare as it was to every other Renaissance writer, and therefore challenges the central, defining principle of postmodern Shakespeare criticism.Arguing that belief in a universal human nature was as important to Shakespeare as to every other Renaissance writer, this book questions the central principle of postmodern Shakespeare criticism. Postmodernists insist that the notion of a defining human essence was alien to Shakespeare and his contemporaries and as radical anti-essentialists, the Elizabethans were, in effect, postmodernists before their time. Challenging this claim, this book demonstrates that for Shakespeare, as for every other humanist writer in this period, the key to all wise action was 'the knowledge of our selves and our human condition.'Preface; Introduction; 1. Shakespeare and English humanism; 2. Gender; 3. Value pluralism; 4. Social justice; 5. Men, woló