Book contents
- Shakespeare and Emotion
- Shakespeare and Emotion
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Text
- Introduction
- Part I Contexts
- Part II Emotions
- Chapter 13 Fear
- Chapter 14 Grief
- Chapter 15 Sympathy
- Chapter 16 Shame
- Chapter 17 Anger
- Chapter 18 Pride
- Chapter 19 Happiness
- Chapter 20 Love
- Chapter 21 Nostalgia
- Chapter 22 Wonder
- Chapter 23 Confusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 19 - Happiness
Othello, I Henry IV, Antony and Cleopatra
from Part II - Emotions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 October 2020
- Shakespeare and Emotion
- Shakespeare and Emotion
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Text
- Introduction
- Part I Contexts
- Part II Emotions
- Chapter 13 Fear
- Chapter 14 Grief
- Chapter 15 Sympathy
- Chapter 16 Shame
- Chapter 17 Anger
- Chapter 18 Pride
- Chapter 19 Happiness
- Chapter 20 Love
- Chapter 21 Nostalgia
- Chapter 22 Wonder
- Chapter 23 Confusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The chapter seeks to demonstrate that Shakespeare had two rather different – though not completely unrelated – conceptions of happiness. One is the Aristotelian eudaimonistic conception, which Shakespeare understood well and to which (as with everything he touched) he gave memorable expression. He understood its relation to virtue, to ‘proper pride’, and to social status. The other conception of happiness is more distinctive, and is a conception for which, as far as I know, there is not a standard designation. It might be called (usefully, if anachronistically) the Blakean or Nietzschean conception. Yeats called it the property of being ‘self-delighting’. Eudaimonia includes this property, but in itself this property has nothing to do with any conception of moral virtue, and can – though it need not – stand in sharp contrast with such. It may, on the other hand, have some relation to Machiavellian virtù. Pleasure in performing the self is part of it. It is as strongly manifested in some outright villains as it is in some admirable characters, and it is manifested in some characters who are hard to locate on such a scale.
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- Information
- Shakespeare and Emotion , pp. 275 - 287Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020