Holding a Mirror up to Nature

Shame, Guilt, and Violence in Shakespeare

James Gilligan, David A.J. Richards

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781108833394
• eBook ISBN:
  9781108988971
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Applied Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Shakespeare has been dubbed the greatest psychologist of all time. This book seeks to prove that statement by comparing the playwright's fictional characters with real-life examples of violent individuals, from criminals to political actors. For Gilligan and Richards, the propensity to kill others, even (or especially) when it results in the killer's own death, is the most serious threat to the continued survival of humanity. In this volume, the authors show how humiliated men, with their desire for retribution and revenge, apocryphal violence and political religions, justify and commit violence, and how love and restorative justice can prevent violence. Although our destructive power is far greater than anything that existed in his day, Shakespeare has much to teach us about the psychological and cultural roots of all violence. In this book the authors tell what Shakespeare shows, through the stories of his characters: what causes violence and what prevents it.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Introduction: Can We Learn from Shakespeare about the Causes and Prevention of Violence?
• Chapter 1 Shame and Guilt in Personality and Culture
• Chapter 2 The Cycle of Violence in the History Plays
• Chapter 3 Fathers and Mothers: The Perversion of Love in King Lear and Coriolanus
• Chapter 4 Make War, Not Love: Antony and Cleopatra
• Chapter 5 The Motives of Malignity: Shame and Masculinity in Othello and Macbeth
• Chapter 6 Moral Nihilism and the Paralysis of Action: Hamlet and Troilus and Cressida
• Chapter 7 Apocalyptic Violence: Timon of Athens
• Chapter 8 Transcending Morality, Preventing Violence: Measure for Measure, The Tempest, The Winter's Tale, and The Merchant of Venice
• Chapter 9 The Form and Pressure of Shakespeare's Time and Ours: What Shakespeare Shows Us about Shame, Guilt, Love, and Violence
• Acknowledgments
• Bibliography
• Index