Shakespeare and Moral Agency

Michael D. Bristol is Greenshields Professor Emeritus at McGill University, Canada.

""Character criticism" fell out of fashion during the last two decades of the twentieth century, and with it, to some extent, questions of individual moral agency. The distinguished contributors to this new anthology return such questions to center stage, and do so through fresh vocabularies of gesture, embodied movement, political theory, behavioral and cognitive science, ethics and moral philosophy. Speaking directly to issues of meaning in Shakespeare's plays, the essays explore how narratives of self-reflection and self-preservation often clash when confronted with the requirements of moral agency, and reveal how unpredictable such stories are when performed on the respective stages of history and society. Theoretically fluent in the debates of the last twenty years, the authors in the volume never confuse Shakespearean characters with "real people." They do, however, support editor Michael Bristol's contention that "you have to be able to take these creations seriously." The essays in this book provide a strong case for removing the scare-quotes from character criticism as we confront the moral dilemmas—some new and many longstanding-- of the twenty-first century." - Linda Charnes, Professor of English and West European Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA

• Introduction: Is Shakespeare a Moral Philosopher? Michael Bristol (McGill University, Canada); Part I: The Agency of Agents; 1. Moral Agency and Its Problems in Julius Caesar. Political Power, Choice, and History, Hugh Grady (Arcadia University, USA); 2. A Shakespearean Phenomenology of Moral Conviction, James A. Knapp (Eastern Michigan University, USA); 3. Wordplay and the Ethics of Self-Deception in Shakespeare's Tragedies, (St. Francis Xavier University, Canada); 4. Shakespearean Puzzles about Agency, (The University of Chicago, USA); Part II: Social Norms; 5. Conduct (Un)becoming or, Playing the Warrior in Macbeth, Sharon O'Dair (University of Alabama, USA); 6. To "Tempt the Rheumy and Unpurged Air": Contagion and Agency in Julius Caesar, (University of North Carolina, USA); 7. Moral Questions and Questionable Ethics in Measure for Measure and The Merchant of Venice, Kathryn R. Finin, (SUNY - Oneonta, USA); 8. "The oldest hath borne most": the Burdens of Aging and the Morality of Uselessness in King Lear, Naomi C. Liebler (Montclair State University, USA); Part III: Moral Characters; 9. Quoting the Enemy: Character, Self-Interpretation, and the Question of Perspective in Shakespeare, (Universite du Quebec a Chicoutimi, Canada); 10. The fool, the Blind, and the Jew, Tzachi Zamir (The Hebrew University, Israel); 11. What's Virtue Ethics Got to Do With It: Shakespearean Character as Moral Character, Sara Coodin (McGill University, Canada); 12.Agency and repentance in The Winter's Tale, Gregory Currie (University of Nottingham, UK); 13. Agent-Regret in Shakespearean Tragedy, Andrew Escobedo (Ohio University, USA); Index.