Cartesian Theaters, Shakespearean Minds - Edinburgh Critical Studies in Shakespeare and Philosophy by Nathan Pensky Hardcover

About the Book

Reassesses Cartesian subjectivity as an important critical lens for the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

Book Synopsis

Most scholars of early modern English literature consider Cartesian rationalism to be a poor theoretical lens. Though René Descartes figures as one of the most important philosophers in the early modern period, and in the history of philosophy itself, he has received scorn from literary scholars of the Renaissance who have become skeptical of "heroes of subjectivity." Cartesian Theaters, Shakespearean Minds challenges the commonplace dichotomy between Cartesian subjectivity and early modern material culture and reconsiders Descartes as a foundational figure in early modern literary studies. It corrects outdated readings by scholars that would position him as a champion of disembodied mind. Instead, Nathan Pensky argues that both Descartes and Shakespeare, as well as several of the latter's contemporaries, draw from overlapping philosophical histories, and that the mind-body problem as evident in early modern drama clearly anticipates Cartesian thought.

Review Quotes

This book promises to reshape our understanding of the relationship between thought and experience on the early modern English stage. Pensky shows how early modern dramatists anticipated Descartes, not as a philosopher of the modern disembodied self but as one who offered a way back to the body through skepticism.--James A. Knapp, Loyola University Chicago