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Shakespeare's Skepticism Redefined
Author(s) -
Weidhorn Manfred
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
orbis litterarum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.109
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1600-0730
pISSN - 0105-7510
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0730.2004.10802.x
Subject(s) - skepticism , cleopatra , nothing , comics , dream , literature , philosophy , shrew , art , epistemology , psychology , ecology , neuroscience , biology
Critics have been busy tracing Shakespeare's apparent skepticism in individual plays and groups of plays. Skepticism, however, pervades the entire canon, in the sense that various plays are in antithetical relationships with each other, often as comic and tragic versions of the same themes ( Richard III and The Taming of the Shrew , Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream , King Lear and As You Like It , Othello and Much Ado About Nothing , Antony and Cleopatra and Troilus and Cressida ). Such pairings suggest an unwillingness to be pinned down to any one reading of reality.