The Elizabethan Mind

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What to expect

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 humors 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.

Critics Review

“Helen Lloyd’s performance is the text’s perfect match. Her clarity and vocal precision mirror the clarity of the writing, which is rich and detailed but not obscure…An absorbing listening experience.”

AudioFile

“Wonderfully perceptive and illuminating…to understand how the Elizabethans viewed themselves, each other, and the world.”

Elizabeth Goldring, author of Nicholas Hilliard

“Hackett…combines learning and empathy…Come for Hamlet, stay for female complaint, Catholic poetics, sonnets, psychomachia, and much more.”

Emma Smith, author of This Is Shakespeare

“Hackett has synthesized an extraordinary range of books to illuminate aspects of the Elizabethan mind…Readers will come away equipped to read Shakespeare and his contemporaries with renewed understanding.”

Jonathan Bate, author of Soul of the Age

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