Passion, Prudence, and Virtue in Shakespearean Drama

Description

Virtue, as a Renaissance ideal, was largely conceived as a rational governing of unruly passions. Revising this early modern commonplace, this study shows how Shakespeare dramatizes a discerning Aristotelian conception of virtue as a touchstone of excellence: executing just action at the best time, in the best way, and for the best end within the contingent world. Not only situational, Aristotelian virtue is, moreover, integrative, harmonizing passion and reason, will and understanding, towards personal and civil good. Yet as a surprising backfire on the misogynist streak in Aristotle, the resistant female characters in Shakespeare emerge as the exemplars of ethical action, appropriating traditionally male-inflected virtue. At the junction of ethical, psycho-physiological, cultural and gender studies, this approach of prudential psychology bridges an apparent but needless divergence of critical focus between affect and cognition, ethics and prudential action. Firmly situated in new historicist practices, prudential psychology goes beyond narrow discourses of power into the all-encompassing arena of virtue as the complete life, which recommends an interdisciplinary approach for a fuller understanding of Shakespeare's works.

After 20 years of teaching, Unhae Langis continues to write as an independent scholar in Santa Cruz, California, currently working on several more books on Shakespeare.

"This is an intensely interesting book. The Aristotelian reading of the plays is rich, cogent, and extensive. Professor Langis has made an important contribution not only to Shakespeare studies but also to ethical criticism in general." -- Mustapha Fahmi, Department of Arts and Literature, University of Quebec, Chicoutimi, Canada "At a time when it is more fashionable for Shakespeare critics to concern themselves with ideas of social conflict, transgression and resistance, it takes real guts for someone to take Aristotle's ideas about virtue and the harmonizing of the passions seriously. The standard of Langis's historical scholarship is exemplary. What makes her treatment of the evidence so compelling, however, is the way she brings out the emotional immediacy of Shakespeare's delineation of his characters and their social situation for a contemporary audience." -- Michael D. Bristol, Greenshields Professor Emeritus, McGill University, Montreal, QC Canada