{"title":"Chris Fitter, Majesty and the Masses in Shakespeare and Marlowe: Western Anti-monarchism, the Earl of Essex Challenge, and Political Stagecraft","authors":"Theodore Nollert","doi":"10.3366/bjj.2022.0343","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/bjj.2022.0343","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40862,"journal":{"name":"Ben Jonson Journal","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80603357","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this article, I present an overview of the key positions and insights within the philosophical debate on the cognitive value of literary fiction. First, I discuss the various ways in which attempts have been made to align literature with the traditional philosophical and scientific concept of truth (propositional truth). Second, I consider a number of alternative concepts of knowledge and truth that have been put forward to understand the conceptual value of literature, such as ethical knowledge and self-knowledge. Then I address the ways in which empirical literary theory engages with these philosophical theories and attempts to support them through psychological experimentation. Fourth, I discuss the idea that literature provides us with a certain form of conceptual knowledge, followed by a discussion of the no-truth theory of literature, the idea that a work’s cognitive value is irrelevant to our valuation of a literary work as a work of art. Finally, I try to show an alternative to the problems that arise with the theories discussed and the lessons that can be learned from those theories, by focusing on Paul Ricoeur's ideas about the workings of fiction.
{"title":"Literature, Truth, and Knowledge","authors":"L. Verheyen","doi":"10.3366/bjj.2022.0340","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/bjj.2022.0340","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I present an overview of the key positions and insights within the philosophical debate on the cognitive value of literary fiction. First, I discuss the various ways in which attempts have been made to align literature with the traditional philosophical and scientific concept of truth (propositional truth). Second, I consider a number of alternative concepts of knowledge and truth that have been put forward to understand the conceptual value of literature, such as ethical knowledge and self-knowledge. Then I address the ways in which empirical literary theory engages with these philosophical theories and attempts to support them through psychological experimentation. Fourth, I discuss the idea that literature provides us with a certain form of conceptual knowledge, followed by a discussion of the no-truth theory of literature, the idea that a work’s cognitive value is irrelevant to our valuation of a literary work as a work of art. Finally, I try to show an alternative to the problems that arise with the theories discussed and the lessons that can be learned from those theories, by focusing on Paul Ricoeur's ideas about the workings of fiction.","PeriodicalId":40862,"journal":{"name":"Ben Jonson Journal","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75131505","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair uses the comic representation of criminality to comment on the urban culture of commodities. The variety of goods bought, sold, circulated, stolen and exchanged in the fair become a trope for the fluidity and malleability of the commodity form, not tied to particular material histories or uses, but part of an emerging fluid ideological space of the market. Against the decay of traditional notions of community, the play proposes a new and radical model of temporary, tactical, mobile and fluid alliances – a community of rogues based on the trope of the commodity form and the economic contract.
{"title":"“What do you lack? What is’t you buy?”: Commodity and Community in Bartholomew Fair","authors":"A. Basu","doi":"10.3366/bjj.2022.0337","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/bjj.2022.0337","url":null,"abstract":"Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair uses the comic representation of criminality to comment on the urban culture of commodities. The variety of goods bought, sold, circulated, stolen and exchanged in the fair become a trope for the fluidity and malleability of the commodity form, not tied to particular material histories or uses, but part of an emerging fluid ideological space of the market. Against the decay of traditional notions of community, the play proposes a new and radical model of temporary, tactical, mobile and fluid alliances – a community of rogues based on the trope of the commodity form and the economic contract.","PeriodicalId":40862,"journal":{"name":"Ben Jonson Journal","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74622507","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Is it better to defend against or assault fortune? By weaving together the adventures of two princes—one who is “risk on” and the other “risk off”—Shakespeare explores the mysteries of risk. While tragic protagonists frequently perish because they take questionable risks (Macbeth committing regicide, Caesar ignoring warnings, or Lear dividing Britain), Shakespeare explores in Hamlet whether caution is risk free. Caution is a source of systemic risk because opportunity is a sliding door and a window. By choosing caution instead of action, the window of opportunity may close. Although both Hamlet and Fortinbras start from similar circumstances and backgrounds, they end up in different places. Fortinbras, by maximizing risk, restores his ancestral prerogatives. Hamlet, by taking a more prudent course, paradoxically fails. Because risk has a time value, Hamlet dramatizes how the greatest risk may be taking insufficient risk. In tragedy, a world where the only thing that can be expected is the unexpected, there are always unexpected ways to fail (or succeed) that cannot be foreseen, but are patently obvious afterwards. When audiences analyze Hamlet with hindsight, they sometimes forget that it was with foresight they enjoyed the play: this is an artifact of Hamlet being too famous. To original audiences, it was unclear until the last whether Fortinbras or Hamlet would prove most royal. Only after the play ends does hindsight become twenty-twenty. Until then, the question of whether to defend against or assault fortune hangs in the balance, fueling drama’s engines.
{"title":"Hamlet, Fortinbras, and the Time Value of Risk in Shakespeare’s Elsinore","authors":"E. Wong","doi":"10.3366/bjj.2022.0338","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/bjj.2022.0338","url":null,"abstract":"Is it better to defend against or assault fortune? By weaving together the adventures of two princes—one who is “risk on” and the other “risk off”—Shakespeare explores the mysteries of risk. While tragic protagonists frequently perish because they take questionable risks (Macbeth committing regicide, Caesar ignoring warnings, or Lear dividing Britain), Shakespeare explores in Hamlet whether caution is risk free. Caution is a source of systemic risk because opportunity is a sliding door and a window. By choosing caution instead of action, the window of opportunity may close. Although both Hamlet and Fortinbras start from similar circumstances and backgrounds, they end up in different places. Fortinbras, by maximizing risk, restores his ancestral prerogatives. Hamlet, by taking a more prudent course, paradoxically fails. Because risk has a time value, Hamlet dramatizes how the greatest risk may be taking insufficient risk. In tragedy, a world where the only thing that can be expected is the unexpected, there are always unexpected ways to fail (or succeed) that cannot be foreseen, but are patently obvious afterwards. When audiences analyze Hamlet with hindsight, they sometimes forget that it was with foresight they enjoyed the play: this is an artifact of Hamlet being too famous. To original audiences, it was unclear until the last whether Fortinbras or Hamlet would prove most royal. Only after the play ends does hindsight become twenty-twenty. Until then, the question of whether to defend against or assault fortune hangs in the balance, fueling drama’s engines.","PeriodicalId":40862,"journal":{"name":"Ben Jonson Journal","volume":"72 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80436076","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay presents the findings of a long-term empirical investigation into the history of soliloquies. The investigation is based on the bedrock distinction between dialogue in the sense of a speech directed at the hearing of one or more other characters and soliloquy in the sense of a speech not directed at the hearing of any other character. Many soliloquies so defined are short; many are guarded in asides from the hearing of other characters; many are unguarded in the presence of other characters. Scholars have ignored these categories and so have underestimated the vast extent of Shakespeare’s employment of the convention and the contexts in which soliloquies occur. The present essay presents for the first time a comprehensive account of all 1185 soliloquies in the canon by indicating the number of soliloquies in each play, the number of characters who soliloquize in each play, the gender distribution of soliloquizers, etc. The essay also presents new evidence that soliloquies in Shakespeare’s plays represented self-addressed speeches as a matter of convention (rather than audience addressed speeches or interior monologues). What emerges from this survey is a new appreciation of Shakespeare’s daring inventiveness in employing the convention that governed soliloquies in his plays.
{"title":"The Convention of Self-Addressed Speech in Shakespeare’s Plays: New Empirical Data","authors":"J. Hirsh","doi":"10.3366/bjj.2022.0339","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/bjj.2022.0339","url":null,"abstract":"This essay presents the findings of a long-term empirical investigation into the history of soliloquies. The investigation is based on the bedrock distinction between dialogue in the sense of a speech directed at the hearing of one or more other characters and soliloquy in the sense of a speech not directed at the hearing of any other character. Many soliloquies so defined are short; many are guarded in asides from the hearing of other characters; many are unguarded in the presence of other characters. Scholars have ignored these categories and so have underestimated the vast extent of Shakespeare’s employment of the convention and the contexts in which soliloquies occur. The present essay presents for the first time a comprehensive account of all 1185 soliloquies in the canon by indicating the number of soliloquies in each play, the number of characters who soliloquize in each play, the gender distribution of soliloquizers, etc. The essay also presents new evidence that soliloquies in Shakespeare’s plays represented self-addressed speeches as a matter of convention (rather than audience addressed speeches or interior monologues). What emerges from this survey is a new appreciation of Shakespeare’s daring inventiveness in employing the convention that governed soliloquies in his plays.","PeriodicalId":40862,"journal":{"name":"Ben Jonson Journal","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90301497","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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