Souls With Longing: Representations of Honor and Love in Shakespeare

Bernard J. Dobski and Dustin A. Gish, eds., Souls With Longing: Representations of Honor and Love in Shakespeare (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2011)

Summary from the Publisher:

The works of William Shakespeare vividly represent for our admiration and study a pageant of souls with longing in whose wake we ceaselessly follow. Through some of his most memorable characters, Shakespeare illuminates the nature and character—as well as consequences—of our distinctively human passions and ambition, in particular our desire for and pursuit of both honor and love. The contributors to this collaborative volume (scholars in English Literature, Political Philosophy, and the Humanities) argue that Shakespeare has much to teach us about our longing for honor and love in particular, and thus about who we are, what we desire, and why. Through sustained reflection on the Shakespearean portraits of honor and love, which are the focus of the chapters in Souls With Longing, we become more keenly aware of our own humanity and come to know ourselves more profoundly. As the abiding popularity of his works aptly demonstrates, Shakespeare’s unforgettable portraits of souls with longing—his representations of honor and love—continue to exert undeniable sway over our political, moral, and romantic imaginations.

Table of Contents:

Prologue

Introduction, by Bernard J. Dobski and Dustin A. Gish

Shakespeare’s Souls with Longing

Chapter 1. “Shakespeare’s Understandings of Honor: Morally Absolute, Politically Relative,” by John Alvis
Chapter 2. “Love, Honor, and the Dynamics of Shakespearean Drama,” by John Briggs
Chapter 3. “The Spectrum of Love: Nature and Convention in As You Like It,” by Paul Cantor
Chapter 4. “Pagan Statesmanship and Christian Translation: Governing Love in A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” by Laurence Nee
Chapter 5. “Honor and Eros: Private Goods and Public Neglect in Shakespeare’s Troy,” by Carol McNamara
Chapter 6. “Friendship and Love of Honor: The Education of Henry V,” by Bernard J. Dobski
Chapter 7. “Love, Sex, and Shakespeare’s Intention in Romeo and Juliet,” by David Lowenthal
Chapter 8. “Macbeth’s Strange Infirmity: Shakespeare’s Portrait of A Demonic Tyranny,” by Carson Holloway
Chapter 9. “Beyond Love and Honor: Eros and Will to Power in Richard III,” by Leon Craig
Chapter 10. “Taming The Tempest: Prospero’s Love of Wisdom and the Turn from Tyranny,” by Dustin A. Gish
Chapter 11. “A Motley to the View: Staging Tragic Honor,” by Glenn Arbery

Epilogue

Chapter 12. “The Phoenix and Turtle and the Mysteries of Love: Who Wants What, Why, and to What Effect?,” by George Anastaplo
Chapter 13. “Love’s Book of Honor and Shame: Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Lyric Flourishing,” by Scott Crider

Online:
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