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The Elizabethan Mind: Searching for the Self in an Age of Uncertainty Audiobook
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Publisher Description
The first comprehensive guide to Elizabethan ideas about the mind
What is the mind? How does it relate to the body and soul? These questions were as perplexing for the Elizabethans as they are for us today—although their answers were often startlingly different. Shakespeare and his contemporaries believed the mind was governed by the humors and passions and was susceptible to the Devil’s interference.
In this insightful and wide-ranging account, Helen Hackett explores the intricacies of Elizabethan ideas about the mind. This was a period of turbulence and transition, as persistent medieval theories competed with revived classical ideas and emerging scientific developments.
Drawing on a wealth of sources, Hackett sheds new light on works by Shakespeare, Marlowe, Sidney, and Spenser, demonstrating how ideas about the mind shaped new literary and theatrical forms. Looking at their conflicted attitudes to imagination, dreams, and melancholy, Hackett examines how Elizabethans perceived the mind, soul, and self, and how their ideas compare with our own.
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“Hackett has synthesized an extraordinary range of books to illuminate aspects of the Elizabethan mind…Readers will come away equipped to read Shakespeare and his contemporaries with renewed understanding.”
— Jonathan Bate, author of Soul of the Age
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“Helen Lloyd’s performance is the text’s perfect match. Her clarity and vocal precision mirror the clarity of the writing, which is rich and detailed but not obscure…An absorbing listening experience.”
— AudioFile -
“Wonderfully perceptive and illuminating…to understand how the Elizabethans viewed themselves, each other, and the world.”
— Elizabeth Goldring, author of Nicholas Hilliard -
“Hackett…combines learning and empathy…Come for Hamlet, stay for female complaint, Catholic poetics, sonnets, psychomachia, and much more.”
— Emma Smith, author of This Is Shakespeare
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About Helen Hackett
Helen Hackett is the author of several books, including The Elizabethan Mind. She is a professor of English literature at University College London. She specializes in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literature, including Shakespeare. She enjoys setting literature in its historical contexts and has particular interests in Elizabeth I, women writers, and intercultural exchanges.
About Helen Lloyd
Helen Lloyd is a British actor and voice artist who recorded her first voice-over at the age of fourteen. Since then, she has spent much of her life interpreting other people’s words and bringing characters to life. A classically trained actor, she has performed with many of Britain’s leading repertory theaters, as well as at the Edinburgh Festival, the Roundhouse, and on the West End.