The Mind According to Shakespeare

Psychoanalysis in the Bard's Writing

Marvin Bennet Krims

• Publisher: Praeger
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN: 9780275990817
• eBook ISBN: 9780313081422
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Dr. Krims, a psychoanalyst for more than three decades, takes readers into the sonnets and characters of Shakespeare and unveils the Bard's talent for illustrating psychoanalytical issues. These hidden aspects of the characters are one reason they feel real and, thus, have such a powerful effect, explains Krims. In exploring Shakespeare's characters, readers may also learn much about their own inner selves. In fact, Krims explains in one chapter how reading Shakespeare and other works helped him resolve his own inner conflicts. Topics of focus include Prince Hal's aggression, Hotspur's fear of femininity, Hamlet's frailty, Romeo's childhood trauma and King Lear's inability to grieve. In one essay, Krims offers a mock psychoanalysis of Beatrice from Much Ado about Nothing. All of the essays look at the unconscious motivations of Shakespeare's characters, and, in doing so, both challenge and extend common understandings of his texts.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 In Defense of Volumnia’s Mothering in The Tragedy of Coriolanus
• 2 Prince Hal’s Aggression
• 3 Uncovering Our Hate in The Taming of the Shrew
• 4 Hotspur’s Fear of Femininity
• 5 Frailty, Thy Name is Hamlet
• 6 Romeo’s Childhood Trauma
• 7 Misreading Cressida
• 8 Love’s Lost Labor in Love’s Labour’s Lost
• 9 Sonnet #129: The Joys and Trials of Making Love
• 10 King Lear’s Inability to Grieve: "Or Ere I’ll Weep. O Fool, I Shall Go Mad!"
• 11 Correspondence between an Elizabethan Woman and Her Psychoanalyst: Beatrice on the Couch
• 12 Epilogue
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index