Shakespeare's Tragic Heroes
Slaves of Passion

A study of how Shakespeare used his tragic characters to explore ideas central to the moral philosophy of his time.

Lily Bess Campbell (Author)

9781108002424, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 July 2009

292 pages, 14 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 1.7 cm, 0.37 kg

Lily Bess Campbell (1883–1967) was a professor of English at UCLA. She won the achievement award from the American Association of University Women in 1960 and was named Woman of the Year by the Los Angeles Times in 1962. One of the most eminent literary scholars of her generation in the United States, she published mostly on Tudor literature. This study, first published in 1930, examines how the passions were understood in the Renaissance and why they were a central concern in the philosophy and medical studies of the period. After several chapters exploring moral philosophy and tragedy more generally, Campbell analyses the characters of Hamlet, Othello, Lear and Macbeth in relation to their guiding emotions: grief, jealousy, wrath and fear. She argues that Shakespeare, in his major tragedies, reflected the latest thinking of his time about the passions and their role in shaping the human mind.

Part I: 1. The mirrors of fortune
2. The value of imitation in teaching
3. Neo-classical interpretations of tragedy
Part II: 4. The uses of philosophy
5. This little world
6. The anatomy of the soul
7. The anatomy of melancholy
8. Diseases of the soul
9. Those who see spirits
10. Virtues and vices
11. Nosce teipsum
Part III: 12. Hamlet
13. Othello
14. King Lear
15. Macbeth
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]