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Colin McGinn
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Shakespeare's Philosophy: Discovering the Meaning Behind the Plays Kindle Edition

by Colin McGinn (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 67 ratings
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Shakespeare’s plays are usually studied by literary scholars and historians and the books about him from those perspectives are legion. It is most unusual for a trained philosopher to give us his insight, as Colin McGinn does here, into six of Shakespeare’s greatest plays–A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, and The Tempest.

In his brilliant commentary, McGinn explores Shakespeare’s philosophy of life and illustrates how he was influenced, for example, by the essays of Montaigne that were translated into English while Shakespeare was writing. In addition to chapters on the great plays, there are also essays on Shakespeare and gender and his plays from the aspects of psychology, ethics, and tragedy.

As McGinn says about Shakespeare, “There is not a sentimental bone in his body. He has the curiosity of a scientist, the judgment of a philosopher, and the soul of a poet.” McGinn relates the ideas in the plays to the later philosophers such as David Hume and the modern commentaries of critics such as Harold Bloom. The book is an exhilarating reading experience, especially for students who are discovering the greatest writer in English.

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    242 pages
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    HarperCollins e-books
  5. Publication date
    March 17, 2009
  6. File size
    2311 KB
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Shakespeare's famous phrase "All the world's a stage/ And all the men and women merely players" reflects a common sense of the self shared by many philosophers. So begins McGinn's project of tracing Shakespeare's philosophy through six of his great plays, while arguing that the great English bard can be fairly regarded as a philosopher. Without seeming at all dusty, the book examines Shakespeare in relation to Hume, Wittgenstein and such major philosophical questions as nothingness, language, causation and the nature of knowledge. McGinn makes a credible case that the essays of Montaigne as well as skepticism and naturalism had a clear influence on Shakespeare's writings, bringing unexpected freshness to topics that are well-worn in high school curriculums. Most interesting is McGinn's earnest delight in rediscovering Shakespeare's characters, such as the tragic Cordelia and the indecisive Hamlet. McGinn's gift, aside from his clear and beautiful prose, is in recognizing Shakespeare's genius in creating true and recognizable people, who ring as true to modern audiences as they did to his contemporaries. "He told us how the world looks from the perspective of itself. And the world never looked the same again." This conclusion implies that just as Shakespeare the playwright still moves his audiences, so, too, can Shakespeare the philosopher. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Colin McGinn was educated at Oxford University. The author of sixteen previous books, including The Making of a Philosopher, he has written for the London Review of Books, The New Republic, the New York Times Book Review, and other publications. He has taught philosophy at University College of London, Oxford, and Rutgers University, and is a distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of Miami.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000W9179C
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperCollins e-books; Reprint edition (March 17, 2009)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 17, 2009
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2311 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 242 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 67 ratings

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Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
67 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Ann Cassin
5.0 out of 5 stars Montaigne and Shakespeare
Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2013
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Not being either a philosopher or a Shakespeare scholar, I find it revelatory in this study that the author finds significant ties between the essays of Montaigne and the delineation of Shakespearean character in the plays. Colin McGinn points out that Montaigne and Shakespeare were contemporaries and “we know Shakespeare read Montaigne.” (I am reading this book on my Kindle and I do not know the page number of this quote except that it is in the chapter on Hamlet). Importantly in considering “Hamlet” McGinn suggests that Hamlet’s central concern, “Who am I?” parallels Montaigne’s endless prose efforts to define himself, his consciousness, his mind, even, on occasion, his brain. McGinn quotes Montaigne, “…there is no permanent existence in our being or in that of objects. We, ourselves, our faculty of judgment and all mortal things are flowing and rolling ceaselessly: nothing certain can be established about one from the other, since both judged and judging are ever shifting and changing.” McGinn states that Montaigne “goes so far as to suggest that a person is not the same from morning till night and that a so-called single life contains many deaths as one self is replaced by another.”
Thus, McGinn writes that the play, “Hamlet” is best understood against this philosophical background and that it is “fundamentally a play about the constitution of the self.” Satisfyingly, the first line of “Hamlet” is “Who’s there?” As McGinn writes, “The opening question could easily have been asked by Hume or Montaigne, as they gazed into themselves in search of the self, and, as I shall suggest, it is preeminently Hamlet’s question about himself.”

Not wanting to give away the true identity of Hamlet and steal McGinn’s thunder, I conclude by saying I am eager to get back to the book and to move on
to “Othello” and all the other plays this author has so brilliantly unwrapped for us.
I expect I will be reading this books for the rest of my life.
8 people found this helpful
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Marilyn
4.0 out of 5 stars Insighful look into the Bard's major works
Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2012
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Though certainly not a comprehensive assessment of the meaning of Shakespeare's work by any means, there is definitely some value in the analysis that is presented here. I found the author's approach and writing style very approachable, which made this book a much more "breezy" read than I anticipated when I purchased it.

I would recommend this book for anyone who enjoys Shakespeare's work - it gives you a perspective on some plays and their pivotal scenes that you might not have considered before.
5 people found this helpful
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GPK
5.0 out of 5 stars New Life and Vitality
Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2020
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Five stars for what must have required monumental preparation and research. Five stars for wonderfully clear and concise writing. Five stars for giving everyone who appreciates and loves Shakespeare more to learn. This is a most entertaining and satisfying tome well worthy of at least one more visit. Mr, McGinn taught me Shakespeare anew and for that I am grateful. I can't help wonder what Kittridge might have thought. One hopes he'd be pleased. I encourage if not urge Bardolaters all to immerse themselves in this marvelous sea of scholarship.
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Maria C. Abaca
5.0 out of 5 stars A must for any Shakespeare enthusiast
Reviewed in the United States on April 1, 2012
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The initial words in the preface immediately attracted my attention, because I felt completely identified: "Like many another person, I first encountered Shakespeare at school..." "I was particularly struck by Othello, though I would have found it hard at the time to explain my reaction."

I believe it is universally accepted that Shakespear's plays offer material that remains current and up-to-date, as years go by.

One of the reasons might be what McGinn teases out of them: key elements of the human condition. These elements can help us to understand why we continue to feel moved by plays that were written so long ago.
5 people found this helpful
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Roy E. Perry
4.0 out of 5 stars A Professor of Philosophy Provides New Insights into the Bard
Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2006
Seyton: The Queen, my lord, is dead.

Macbeth: She should have died hereafter,

There would have been a time for such a word.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time.

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle.

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

--Macbeth (Act 5, scene 5, lines 17-28)

When, as a Junior in high school, I first read these lines, I was shaken awake by Macbeth's powerful soliloquy. Today, many years later, I am still stunned by the power and depth of Shakespeare's philosophical vision.

Celebrated as the great writer in the history of the English language, William Shakespeare produced a body of work with untold depths--so deep, in fact, that nearly 400 years after his death, we are still puzzling over it. A new book by Colin McGinn seeks to wrest still more insights from the celebrated Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon.

In "Shakespeare's Philosophy," McGinn contends that "an avowedly philosophical approach to Shakespeare can reveal new dimensions to his work and that his work can contribute to philosophy itself."

McGinn ("The Making of a Philosopher") has taught Philosophy at University College London and Oxford, and at Rutgers University, and recently became a Distinguished Professor at the University of Miami.

McGinn examines the main philosophical themes in Shakespeare's plays: knowledge and skepticism (epistemology); the self (psychology and ethics); and causality (metaphysics and ontology).

"There is not a sentimental bone in [Shakespeare's] body," writes McGinn. "He has the curiosity of a scientist, the judgment of a philosopher, and the soul of a poet. He gives one the sense that he is ruthlessly peeling back the layers of self-delusion and wishful thinking that cloud our view of human affairs, exposing the bloody beating heart (and intestines) of men. He is a beady-eyed naturalist of raging human interiority and social collision. And his naturalism counsels a proper skepticism about human pretensions to knowledge, distrust of the notion of the substantial self, and rejection of the teleological interpretation of causality."

McGinn shows the profound influence of the humanist Michel de

Montaigne (1533-1592) on Shakespeare, giving convincing evidence of this influence by citing the spiritual and literary affinities between the two writers. Montaigne's book of essays is one of the few books scholars can confirm Shakespeare had in his library, and Montaigne's essay "On Cannibals" was a direct source for "The Tempest."

McGinn cautions us not to assume (or presume) to know Shakespeare's personal beliefs by a cursory reading of his plays. After all, as a playwright, Shakespeare put expressions of conflicting worldviews in the mouths and minds of his fictional characters.

Nevertheless, one cannot seriously read Shakespeare without sensing his deep humanism and "realistic naturalism" (McGinn's phrase) and being persuaded that Shakespeare, like Nietzsche, had stared long into the abyss and found the abyss staring back at him.

In Shakespeare's Philosophy, McGinn examines in some detail six of the Bard's plays: "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "The Tempest," "Hamlet," "Othello," "Macbeth," and "King Lear." Especially in the last four mentioned plays, we see Shakespeare's pronounced tragic view of life, his artistry not only as poet and playwright but also as a philosopher of the first rank.

"Shakespeare's genius," writes McGinn, "should be seen in his submission to nature. He didn't impose his own vision on reality; he let reality impose itself on his vision. He told us how the world looks from the perspective of itself. And the world never looked the same again."

While reading books about Shakespeare is no substitute for reading the Bard himself, Colin McGinn gives us remarkable insights into his tragic vision, thereby alerting us for numerous things of which to be aware when we read Shakespeare's works.

(See also my review of Laurie Maquire's "Where There's a Will There's a Way: or, All I Really Need to Know I Learned from Shakespeare".)
18 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Peter Murphy
5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for Shakespeareans
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 9, 2021
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Immensely readable and intriguing approach Shakespeare that not only made me want to go back to the plays,
but to study philosophy in more depth.
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Charalee Graydon
5.0 out of 5 stars Shake's ^Philosophy
Reviewed in Spain on July 14, 2014
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Excellent book. I enjoy the insights it provides both to Shakespeare and his characters. I would recommend this book to my friends.
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Steve Eddy
4.0 out of 5 stars Shakespeare's Philosophy
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 5, 2011
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An excellent book - eloquent and occasionally witty, informed and thought-provoking. For me, just the right balance of philosophical background (e.g. Plato, Montaigne) and direct investigation of the ideas in Shakespeare's plays. The author relates the plays to modern philosophers too, for example comparing Shakespeare's view of the world as a stage, and its inhabitants as players, with Sartre's ideas about how we create an identity for ourselves and act it out. Especially interesting on how Macbeth creates his character by his actions, rather than his actions springing from his character.

This book almost deserves five stars: it only lacks coverage of the Elizabethan and Jacobean philosophical context, for example the Great Chain of Being. The only other slight weakness is that it gives relatively little attention to the comedies. However, the tragedies are more obviously philosophical, and no book of this size could cover everything.
6 people found this helpful
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Abrahamsson Torgil
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 3, 2016
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Ok, by all means. Thank You.
One person found this helpful
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Grenadier
5.0 out of 5 stars Shakespeare's Philosophy
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 5, 2009
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The book is a real eye opener and helps us think about our own situations and the unpredictability of human behaviour.
3 people found this helpful
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