Understanding art

Richard Eldridge

doi:10.1017/CBO9781107300538.007

6 - Understanding art

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2014

Richard Eldridge

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Richard Eldridge: Affiliation:
Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania

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Six strategies for understanding art

Consider the following six very broad strategies for understanding Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Hamlet can be seen in light of the conscious preoccupations of a roughly identifiable historical epoch such as Jacobean England, the Renaissance, or early modern Europe. For example, one may see the play as addressing problems of political authority and succession, problems of conscience in the light of the Reformation’s resistance to priestly mediation between individuals and God, problems of stagecraft and performance, or some combination of these and other problems. Shakespeare may reasonably be supposed to have known and thought about these problems. To explore Hamlet in this light will mean relating the text to varieties of contemporary documents – for example, political treatises, religious tracts, and instruction manuals for actors – that likewise evidently address such problems. Reading will focus on how the action of the play presents characters confronting these problems. Hamlet is here seen as a consciously formed document that partakes of the spirit of its times.

Type: Chapter
Information: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art , pp. 142 - 166

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107300538.007 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2014

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6 - Understanding art

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