Shakespeare, Philosophy, and Literature

The Author: Morris Weitz (1916-1981) received a B.A. degree at Wayne State University and, after graduate work in history at the University of Chicago, received a Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Michigan. During a distinguished career, Weitz taught philosophy and the history of ideas principally at Vassar College, Ohio State and Brandeis universities. He received many awards, fellowships, and lecture invitations. In his first book, Philosophy of the Arts (1950), and in his many subsequent books and articles, critics noted his close acquaintance with the arts themselves, including: literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, music, dance, and film.The Editor: Margaret Collins Weitz is Professor of Humanities at Suffolk University (Boston) and a Senior Affiliate of Harvard University.

«Terms not only need to be defined, but may be redefined by continuing discourse; and Morris Weitz is not only adept at such formulations, but invariably helpful in guiding us away from the all-too-frequent pitfalls of obfuscating terminology. In evoking, quoting, or restating some of the major texts from Plato to Wittgenstein, he reminds us that the critical function - if not always progressive - is ultimately cumulative in its historical scope.Literature, as the most explicit of the arts, depending like philosophy upon words, claims his fullest attention: most centrally the drama, but also such preeminent novels as those of Tolstoy and Proust (and he has written discerningly of Eliot's poetry).» (Harry Levin, Harvard University)