Time and the Problem of Royal Succession in Shakespeare's History Plays

2016 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 609-624
Author(s):  
John D. Cox
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Human Action ◽  
The Other ◽  
History Plays ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Medieval Drama ◽  
Political Concern ◽  
Ability To Act ◽  
History Play ◽  
Spiritual State

AbstractShakespeare's most innovative genre was the history play, because it has no precedent in either classical or medieval tradition. In contrast to the focused teleology of Christian medieval drama, Shakespeare's history plays manifest an implicit idea of history that was secular, political, and open-ended. They emphasize human action in a political arena, where the criterion for success is the ability to act in time, without regard to one's spiritual state. Time determines royal succession, which is the focus of all Shakespeare's history plays, as it was the focus of political concern in England in the 1590s, when the plays were written. His emphasis on time and royal succession distinguishes his implied political theory from the moralism and authoritarianism of official Tudor state doctrine on one hand and from the pragmatism of Machiavelli on the other.

scholarly journals Bruno Leoni’s Concept of Law and Representation in The Cyber Age: A Cybernetic Model

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-65
Author(s):  
Mario De Benedetti
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Information Society ◽  
The Political ◽  
Digital Information ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Cybernetic Model ◽  
Norbert Wiener ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
Concept Of Law

AbstractThe purpose of this article is to contextualize Bruno Leoni’s political theory within the Digital Information Society, a new dimension of public participation in the political arena and a sign of the democratic transition through new forms of involvement by public opinion. In particular, the evolution of the Information Society will be briefly examined starting from the studies of Fritz Machlup, considered its progenitor, to pass to the examination of the Leonian concept of law and politics in the technological society, with reference to Norbert Wiener and Karl Deutsch’s cybernetic theory. This paper will attempt to describe the evolutive process of political participation in democratic society by reinterpreting the thought of Bruno Leoni concerning Democracy, the State and the homo telematicus in the digital social order.

Reviews: History and the Media, Writing Biography: Historians and Their Craft, Selected Writings: Volume 4, 1938–1940, Benjamin Now: Critical Encounters with ‘The Arcades Project’, Illustrating the Past in Early Modern England: The Representation of History in Printed Books, Shakespeare's Culture in Modern Performance, Shakespeare's Early History Plays: From Chronicle to Stage, Secret Shakespeare, Theatre and Religion: Lancastrian Shakespeare, Language and Politics in the Sixteenth-Century History Play, the Bible in English: Its History and Influence, John Selden: Measures of the Holy Commonwealth in Seventeenth-Century England, William Blake and the Impossible History of the 1790s, William Blake's Comic Vision, Rural Englands: Labouring Lives in the Nineteenth Century, Victorian Shakespeare, 2 Vols, Vol. 1, Theatre, Drama and Performance; Vol. 2, Literature and Culture, Consumerism and American Girls' Literature, 1860–1940, Twentieth-Century Writing and the British Working Class, Psychoanalysis, Psychiatry and Modernist Literature, Postcolonial Animal Tale from Kipling to Coetzee, Shakespeare and the American NationCannadineDavid (ed.), History and the Media , Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, pp. vii + 175, £19.99.AmbrosiusLloyd E. (ed.), Writing Biography: Historians and their craft , University of Nebraska Press, 2004, pp. xiii + 166, £34.50.BenjaminWalter, Selected Writings: Volume 4, 1938–1940 , trans. JephcottEdmund, ed. EilandHoward and JenningsMichael W., Harvard University Press, 2003, pp. vi + 477, £26.50McLaughlinKevin and RosenPhilip (eds), Benjamin Now: Critical Encounters with ‘The Arcades Project‘ , Duke University Press, 2003, pp. 219, £10.50.KnappJames A., Illustrating the Past in Early Modern England: The Representation of History in Printed Books , Ashgate Publishing, 2003, pp. xvi + 274, £35.JonesMaria, Shakespeare's Culture in Modern Performance , Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. xii + 213, £45.Goy-BlanquetDominque, Shakespeare's Early History Plays: From Chronicle to Stage , Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. viii + 312, £63.WilsonRichard, Secret Shakespeare , Manchester University Press, 2004, pp. viii + 26, £15.99 pbDuttonRichard, FindlayAlison and WilsonRichard (eds), Theatre and Religion: Lancastrian Shakespeare , Manchester University Press, 2003, pp. xii + 267, £16.99 pb.CavanaghDermot, Language and Politics in the Sixteenth-Century History Play , Early Modern Literature in History, Palgrave, 2003, pp. x + 197, £45.DaniellDavid, The Bible in English: Its History and Influence , Yale University Press, 2003, pp. xx + 900. £29.95.BarbourReid, John Selden: Measures of the Holy Commonwealth in Seventeenth-Century England , University of Toronto Press, 2003, pp. x + 417, £42.MakdisiSaree, William Blake and the Impossible History of the 1790s , University of Chicago Press, 2003, pp. xviii + 394, $22 pbRawlinsonNick, William Blake's Comic Vision , Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. xiv + 292, £42.50.ReayBarry, Rural Englands: Labouring Lives in the Nineteenth Century , Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, 25 illustrations, 7 figs., pp. x + 274, £16.99 pb.MarshallGail and PooleAdrian (eds), Victorian Shakespeare , 2 vols, Vol. 1, Theatre, Drama and Performance; Vol. 2, Literature and Culture , Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. xv + 213 and pp. xiv + 228, £90.StoneleyPeter, Consumerism and American Girls' Literature, 1860–1940 , Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. x +167, £40.KirkJohn, Twentieth-Century Writing and the British Working Class , University of Wales Press, 2003, pp. 224, £35.ValentineKylie, Psychoanalysis, Psychiatry and Modernist Literature , Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. 224, £45.NymanJopi, Postcolonial Animal Tale from Kipling to Coetzee , New Delhi, Atlantic Publishers and Distributor, 2003, pp. vi + 176, Rupees 375.00SturgessKim C., Shakespeare and the American Nation , Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. x + 234, £45.

2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 74-96
Author(s):  
R.C. Richardson ◽  
David Watson ◽  
Gary Farnell ◽  
John N. King ◽  
M. J. Jardine ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
William Blake ◽  
History Plays ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Printed Books ◽  
Arcades Project ◽  
The Media ◽  
John Selden ◽  
And Performance ◽  
History Play

scholarly journals Aesthetics and Creativity. Identity Configurations

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Livia Durac ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
The Other ◽  
Mutual Understanding ◽  
State Of Mind ◽  
Human Attitude ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Nature And Society ◽  
The Way

Reflecting on human attitude towards reality, together with deciphering the emotional code that accompanies it, has configured - in time – the aesthetic universe, open to human reflection, creation, and evaluation. Aesthetics appears through the way in which consciousness reacts and capitalises upon things in nature and society, or which belong to human subjectivity, including on artistic work, which have an effect on sensitiveness due to their harmony, balance and grandeur. As a fundamental attribute of the human being, creativity is the engine of cultural evolution, meaning the degree of novelty that man brings in his ideas, actions, and creations. Aesthetical values, together with the other types of values, contribute to what society represents and to what it can become, hence motivating human action and creation. Their role is to create a state of mind that encourages the cohesion, cooperation, and mutual understanding of the society. Integrating a chronological succession of the evolution of the concepts that objectify its structure, its aesthetics and creativity, this article stresses the synergetic nature of the two dimensions of human personality, paving the way to beauty, as a form of enchantment of the human spirit.

scholarly journals La batalla por la democracia

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
ERNESTO GANUZA ◽  
Heloise Nez ◽  
Ernesto Morales
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Participatory Budgeting ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Porto Alegre ◽  
Local Participation ◽  
Urban Social Movements ◽  
Political Subject ◽  
Set Up

The emergence of new participatory mechanisms, such as participatory budgeting, in towns and cities in recent years, has given rise to a conflict between the old protagonists of local participation and the new citizens invited to participate. These mechanisms offer a logic of collective action different to what has been the usual fare in the cities – one that is based on proposal rather than demand. As a result, it requires urban social movements to transform their own dynamics in order to make room for a new political subject (the citizenry and the non-organised participant) and to act upon a stage where deliberative dynamics now apply. The present article aims to analyse this conflict in three different cities that set up participatory budgeting at different times: Porto Alegre, Cordova and Paris. The associations in the three cities took up a position against the new participatory mechanism and demanded a bigger role in the political arena. Through a piece of ethnographic research, we shall see that the responses of the agents involved (politicians, associations and citizens) in the three cities share some arguments, although the conflict was resolved differently in each of them. The article concludes with reflections on the consequences this conflict could have for contemporary political theory, especially with respect to the role of associations in the processes of democratisation and the setting forth of a new way of doing politics by means of deliberative procedures.

scholarly journals From paradigm to paradox – contemporary mainstream theoretical reflections for fieldwork in lowland South America

2019 ◽  
pp. 209-222
Author(s):  
Virgílio Bomfil Neto
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Knowledge Systems ◽  
The Other ◽  
Nature And Culture ◽  
Dialectical Process ◽  
Scientific Epistemology ◽  
Anthropological Literature

This essay intends to address perspectives and reflections on nature and culture in the contemporary anthropological literature . Dialogically engaging with Ingold, Wag- ner, Viveiros de Castro, Descola and Strathern, I aim to demonstrate the implications of understanding culture as an axiomatic point of differentiation of human nature, or as re-elaboration of materiality through human action . This reflection calls us to rethink the Western scientific epistemology, along with its presupposed ontological order . Such questioning unfolds in the elaboration of the ethnographic text, which in turn is the result of a dialectical process that speaks not only of one culture, but of two, and especially of our gaze on the Other . In the ethnographic text, an anthropologist and a native are the potential locus of reproduction of their culture . Through this approach we extend the implications of epistemological concerns to fieldwork practices and to the art of under- standing other knowledge systems .

scholarly journals Macintyre on identity of ethics and politics

2006 ◽  
pp. 29-56
Author(s):  
Michal Sládecek
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Ethical Life ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
Ethics And Politics

In first chapters of this article MacIntyre?s view of ethics is analyzed, together with his critics of liberalism as philosophical and political theory, as well as dominant ideological conception. In last chapters MacIntyre?s view of the relation between politics and ethics is considered, along with the critical review of his theoretical positions. Macintyre?s conception is regarded on the one hand as very broad, because the entire morality is identified with ethical life, while on the other hand it is regarded as too narrow since it excludes certain essential aspects of deliberation which refers to the sphere of individual rights, the relations between communities, as well as distribution of goods within the state.

scholarly journals The Theory of Democratic Antinomies and the Identification of Value Trade-Offs in Political Practice

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 264-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Hidalgo
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Relevant Issue ◽  
General Argument ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
The One ◽  
Existence Of Value

In theory, the idea of democracy consists of several insoluble contradictions, aporias, and conflicts. In practice, democracy demands an effective balancing of its essentially opposing principles and values in order to preserve an authentic character as well as to avoid its inherent self-destructive tendencies. In this regard, the concept of value trade-offs promises a heuristic tool to grasp both the analytical and normative impact of a political theory which takes the complexity of democracy seriously. Proceeding from this, the contribution will demonstrate to what extent the conceptualisation of democratic antinomies and the notion of value trade-offs can be seen as a kind of communicating vessel. The article’s general argument is that democracy is defined by several antinomies that are irreducible in theory and therefore require trade-offs in political practice. Moreover, it will discuss three relevant issue areas to suggest the approach’s empirical relevance and to prove the existence of value trade-offs as an operating benchmark for the legitimacy and consolidation of democratic processes on the one hand but also for their shortcomings and risks on the other. Correspondingly, the article concerns the antinomic relationships between freedom and security, economic growth and sustainability, and finally, democracy and populism to underpin the general perception that the success of democratic institutions first and foremost depends on the balance of the necessarily conflicting principles of democracy.

Introduction: The Baroque Body Parts of Henry VI Part Two

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Huw Griffiths
Keyword(s):  
History Plays ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Henry Vi ◽  
History Play

The introduction sets up the starting premise of book: that, in the history plays, metaphors involving bodies and body parts always complicate, rather than simplify, any understanding of sovereign power. Founded on recent research into the authorship and revisions of the Henry VI plays, this chapter reveals Shakespeare’s particular contribution to the emerging genre of the history play as one of proliferating complexity. Work on the politics of the baroque in Benjamin and Foucault is used to frame an understanding of the off-kilter figuration employed in the dialogue of these plays. Key examples are taken from the Henry VI part two, where Shakespeare’s contributions to the lengthier Folio text consist almost entirely of the addition of long metaphorical speeches that contest the crown, and characters’ proximity to sovereign power.

Playing the Past: Approaches to English Historical Drama, 1385–1600. By Benjamin Griffin. Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 2001; pp. xiii + 193. $70 cloth.

2004 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-309
Author(s):  
Paulette Marty
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
History Plays ◽  
Historical Drama ◽  
The Past ◽  
Dramatic Structure ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
History Play

Benjamin Griffin takes an innovative approach to studying the history-play genre in early modern England. Rather than comparing history plays to their chronicle sources or interrogating their political implications, Griffin studies their relationships with other early modern English dramas, contextualizing them for “those who wish . . . to understand the history play by way of the history of plays” (xiii). He seeks to identify the genre's distinct characteristics by selecting a relatively broad spectrum of plays and examining their dramatic structure, their historical content, and their audiences' relationship to the subject matter.

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