Cognition, Mindreading, and Shakespeare's Characters

Cognition, Mindreading, and Shakespeare's Characters brings cognitive science to Shakespeare, applying contemporary theories of mindreading to Shakespeare's construction of character. Building on the work of the philosopher Alvin Goldman and cognitive literary critics such as Bruce McConachie and Lisa Zunshine, Nicholas Helms uses the language of mindreading to analyze inference and imagination throughout Shakespeare's plays, dwelling at length on misread minds in King Lear, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, and Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare manipulates the mechanics of misreading to cultivate an early modern audience of adept mindreaders, an audience that continues to contemplate the moral ramifications of Shakespeare's characters even after leaving the playhouse. Using this cognitive literary approach, Helms reveals how misreading fuels Shakespeare's enduring popular appeal and investigates the ways in which Shakespeare's characters can both corroborate andchallenge contemporary cognitive theories of the human mind.

Autorentext

Nicholas R. Helms is Instructor of English at the Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies at The University of Alabama, USA. His research applies cognitive science to early modern drama and poetry. He also acts as artistic director of the Improbable Fictions staged reading series.

Klappentext
Cognition, Mindreading, and Shakespeare's Characters brings cognitive science to Shakespeare, applying contemporary theories of mindreading to Shakespeare's construction of character. Building on the work of the philosopher Alvin Goldman and cognitive literary critics such as Bruce McConachie and Lisa Zunshine, Nicholas Helms uses the language of mindreading to analyze inference and imagination throughout Shakespeare's plays, dwelling at length on misread minds in King Lear, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, and Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare manipulates the mechanics of misreading to cultivate an early modern audience of adept mindreaders, an audience that continues to contemplate the moral ramifications of Shakespeare's characters even after leaving the playhouse. Using this cognitive literary approach, Helms reveals how misreading fuels Shakespeare's enduring popular appeal and investigates the ways in which Shakespeare's characters can both corroborate and challenge contemporary cognitive theories of the human mind.

Inhalt

1. The Mind's Construction: An Introduction to Mindreading in Shakespeare

I: Mindreading in Shakespeare's Macbeth

II: Overview of the Chapters

2. Reading the Mind: Cognitive Science and Close Reading

I: Character Criticism and the Importance of Lady Macbeth's Children

II: Contemporary Theories of Mindreading

III: The Rape of Lucrece as a Primer in the Mind's Construction

3. Inferring the Mind: Parasites and the Breakdown of Inference in Othello

I: Parasiting Levels of Intentionality

II: Anxious Static in La Mandragola, Volpone, and The Duchess of Malfi

III: Iago's Chain of Inference

4. Imagining the Mind: Empathy and Misreading in Much Ado About Nothing

I. Epistemology of the Blush

II: Imagination as Contagion

III: Extended Mind and the Ecology of Emotion

IV: Overconfidence in Empathy

5. Integrating Minds: Blending Methods in The King Is Alive and Twelfth Night

I: Characters of the Desert in Kristian Levring's The King is Alive

II: Conceiving Ambiguity in Twelfth Night

6. Finding the Frame: Inference in Romeo and Juliet I: Seeing Death on Shakespeare's Stage

II: Spontaneous Generation as a Frame for Mindreading

III: Decaying Matter and Cognitive Ecology

IV: Thinking Through Corpses in Romeo and Juliet

7. Reading Incoherence: How Shakespeare Speaks Back to Cognitive Science I: The Glass Delusion as a Model for Transparency

II: Hamlet's Finite Space of Solitary Confinement

III: Opaque Melancholy in The Two Noble Kinsmen IV: Cognitive Science ...