The Elizabethan Mind

Searching for the Self in an Age of Uncertainty

Helen Hackett

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English

Yale University
24 May 2022

History

The first comprehensive guide to Elizabethan ideas about the mind

What is the mind? How does it relate to the body and soul? These questions were as perplexing for the Elizabethans as they are for us today-although their answers were often startlingly different. Shakespeare and his contemporaries believed the mind was governed by the humours and passions, and was susceptible to the Devil's interference.

In this insightful and wide-ranging account, Helen Hackett explores the intricacies of Elizabethan ideas about the mind. This was a period of turbulence and transition, as persistent medieval theories competed with revived classical ideas and emerging scientific developments. Drawing on a wealth of sources, Hackett sheds new light on works by Shakespeare, Marlowe, Sidney, and Spenser, demonstrating how ideas about the mind shaped new literary and theatrical forms. Looking at their conflicted attitudes to imagination, dreams, and melancholy, Hackett examines how Elizabethans perceived the mind, soul, and self, and how their ideas compare with our own.

The Elizabethan Mind: Searching for the Self in an Age of Uncertainty

By: Helen Hackett
Imprint: Yale University
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9780300207200
ISBN 10: 0300207204
Pages: 448
Publication Date: 24 May 2022
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Helen Hackett is professor of English literature at University College London. An expert on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, she is the author of Shakespeare and Elizabeth and A Short History of English Renaissance Drama.

Reviews for The Elizabethan Mind: Searching for the Self in an Age of Uncertainty

Hackett's extraordinary achievement in The Elizabethan Mind combines learning and empathy as she ranges across cognitive, emotional, spiritual, and physiological approaches. Come for Hamlet, stay for female complaint, Catholic poetics, sonnets, psychomachia, and much more. -Emma Smith, author of This is Shakespeare -- Emma Smith Hackett has synthesized an extraordinary range of books to illuminate aspects of the Elizabethan mind. She offers excellent readings of familiar works such as Shakespeare's tragedies as well as little-known gems such as women's translations of the Psalms. Readers will come away equipped to read Shakespeare and his contemporaries with renewed understanding. -Jonathan Bate, author of Soul of the Age: The Life, Mind and World of William Shakespeare -- Jonathan Bate Wonderfully perceptive and illuminating. If you want to understand how the Elizabethans viewed themselves, each other, and the world, read this book. -Elizabeth Goldring, author of Nicholas Hilliard: Life of an Artist -- Elizabeth Goldring