The Elizabethan Mind, Helen Hackett
The Elizabethan Mind, Helen Hackett
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The Elizabethan Mind
Searching for the Self in an Age of Uncertainty

Author: Helen Hackett

Narrator: Helen Lloyd

Unabridged: 14 hr 24 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/27/2022

Synopsis

The first comprehensive guide to Elizabethan ideas about the mindWhat 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.

About Helen Hackett

Helen Hackett is professor of English literature at University College London. An expert on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, she is the author of Shakespeare and Elizabeth and A Short History of English Renaissance Drama.

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.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jen

I find the development of our relationship with the self over history a fascinating topic, so The Elizabethan Mind immediately piqued my interest. Although this feels like an academic text, as a non-academic reader there was a lot I could take from this book. Hackett explores the Elizabethan underst......more

Goodreads review by Mandy

A superb work of scholarship; insightful, intelligent and thoroughly researched, a comprehensive and wide-ranging exploration of how people in the 16th century thought of the human mind. Ambitious in its scope, the book is at once a cultural, intellectual and literary history of the Elizabethan age......more

Quotes

“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

“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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