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The essays contained in this book proceed from the common conviction that Shakespeare s poetry conveys a wisdom about politics commensurate with his artistry. Well-known thinkers discuss Shakespeare's understanding of politics, the idea of the best polity, the relationship between character and political life, and the interpenetration of poetry, politics, religion, and philosophy.
Taking the classical view that the political shapes man's consciousness, Allan Bloom considers Shakespeare as a profoundly political Renaissance dramatist. He aims to recover Shakespeare's ideas and beliefs and to make his work once again a recognized source for the serious study of moral and political problems. In essays looking at Julius Caesar, Othello, and The Merchant of Venice, Bloom shows how Shakespeare presents a picture of man that does not assume privileged access for only literary criticism. With this claim, he argues that political philosophy offers a comprehensive framework within which the problems of the Shakespearean heroes can be viewed. In short, he argues that Shakespeare...
Using the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne as a case study, John E. Alvis shows that a novelist can be a political philosopher. He demonstrates that much of Hawthorne's works are rooted in the American political tradition. Once we view his writings in connection with the principles expressed in the Declaration of Independence, we grasp that what Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had stated explicitly, Hawthorne's fiction conveys dramatically. With examples drawn from Hawthorne's shorter works, as well as acknowledged classics, such as The Scarlet Letter, John E. Alvis shows that Hawthorne's characters bear something sacred in their generic humanity, yet are subject to moral judgment. He conveys re...
John Milton was not only the greatest English Renaissance poet but also devoted twenty years to prose writing in the advancement of religious, civil and political liberties. The height of his public career was as chief propagandist to the Commonwealth regime which came into being following the execution of King Charles I in 1649. The first of the two complete texts in this volume, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, was easily the most radical justification of the regicide at the time. In the second, A Defence of the People of England, Milton undertook to vindicate the Commonwealth's cause to Europe as a whole.This book, first published in 1991, was the first time that fully annotated versions were published together in one volume, and incorporated a new translation of the Defence. The introduction outlines the complexity of the ideological landscape which Milton had to negotiate, and in particular the points at which he departed radically from his sixteenth-century predecessors.
What were Shakespeare's final thoughts on history, tragedy, and comedy? Shakespeare's Last Plays focuses much needed scholarly attention on Shakespeare's "Late Romances." The work--a collection of newly commissioned essays by leading scholars of classical political philosophy and literature--offers careful textual analysis of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, All is True, and The Two Noble Kinsmen. The essays reveal how Shakespeare's thought in these final works compliments, challenges, fulfills, or transforms previously held conceptions of the playwright and his political-philosophical views.
Willmoore Kendall: Maverick of American Conservatives provides the first book-length study of a man long regarded as a founding father of American intellectual conservatism. This edited collection brings together a diverse range of perspectives on Kendall's life and work and places the post-World War II political theorist in the context of modern American conservatism. Far from providing a monolithic view of Kendall's thought, the contributions illuminate an unconventional, often contradictory, thinker. The book traces the development of Kendall's body of political thought from his early years in Oxford, through his work on John Locke, to the later speculation that produced The Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition , and analyzes the influence of Leo Strauss on his later work. Including, for the first time in print, the complete correspondence between Kendall and Strauss that significantly shaped Kendall's later work, Willmoore Kendall is a vital contribution to American intellectual history.
Constitutionalism and Liberty: Essays in Honor of David K. Nichols explores the relationship between liberty and constitutionalism in American politics and political theory, and is organized around the question of how human liberty is preserved and advanced while empowering government to have the necessary authority to effectively govern society. The essays themselves are divided into three areas reflecting the breadth and diversity of David K. Nichols’s scholarship. The first assesses how we should understand separation of powers and checks and balances in the American constitutional system. The second area treats different aspects of American legal practice and jurisprudence, including t...
In Undead in the West: Vampires, Zombies, Mummies, and Ghosts on the Cinematic Frontier, Cynthia J. Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper have assembled a collection of essays that explore the many tropes and themes through which undead Westerns make the genre’s inner plagues and demons visible, and lay siege to a frontier tied to myths of strength, ingenuity, freedom, and independence. The volume is divided into three sections: “Reanimating Classic Western Tropes” examines traditional Western characters, symbolism, and plot devices and how they are given new life in undead Westerns; “The Moral Order Under Siege” explores the ways in which the undead confront classic values and morality ...
Revised and updated, this long-awaited second edition provides a comprehensive introduction to what the most thoughtful Americans have said about the American experience from the colonial period to the present. The book examines the political thought of the most important American statesmen, activists, and writers across era and ideologies, helping another generation of students, scholars, and citizens to understand more fully the meaning of America. This new second edition of the book includes chapters on several additional historical figures, including Walt Whitman, Lyndon Baines Johnson, and Ronald Reagan, as well as a new chapter on Barack Obama, who was not prominent in public life when the first edition was published. Significant revisions and additions have also been made to many of the original chapters, most notably on Antonin Scalia, which now updates his full legacy, increasing the breadth and depth of the collection.