Cognition, Mindreading, and Shakespeare's Characters

by Nicholas R. Helms

Overview

Cognition, Mindreading, and Shakespeare's Characters brings cognitive science to Shakespeare, applying contemporary theories of mindreading to Shakespeare’s construction of character. Building on the work of the philosopher Alvin Goldman and cognitive literary critics such as Bruce McConachie and Lisa Zunshine, Nicholas Helms uses the language of mindreading to analyze inference and imagination throughout Shakespeare’s plays, dwelling at length on misread minds in King Lear, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, and Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare manipulates the mechanics of misreading to cultivate an early modern audience of adept mindreaders, an audience that continues to contemplate the moral ramifications of Shakespeare’s characters even after leaving the playhouse. Using this cognitive literary approach, Helms reveals how misreading fuels Shakespeare’s enduring popular appeal and investigates the ways in which Shakespeare’s characters can both corroborate and challenge contemporary cognitive theories of the human mind.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030035648
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	01/17/2019
Series:	Cognitive Studies in Literature and Performance
Edition description:	1st ed. 2019
Pages:	229
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Nicholas R. Helms is Instructor of English at the Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies at The University of Alabama, USA. His research applies cognitive science to early modern drama and poetry. He also acts as artistic director of the Improbable Fictions staged reading series.

Table of Contents

1. The Mind’s Construction: An Introduction to Mindreading in Shakespeare

I: Mindreading in Shakespeare’s Macbeth

II: Overview of the Chapters 

2. Reading the Mind: Cognitive Science and Close Reading

I: Character Criticism and the Importance of Lady Macbeth’s Children

II: Contemporary Theories of Mindreading

III: The Rape of Lucrece as a Primer in the Mind’s Construction

3. Inferring the Mind: Parasites and the Breakdown of Inference in Othello

I: Parasiting Levels of Intentionality

II: Anxious Static in La Mandragola, Volpone, and The Duchess of Malfi

III: Iago’s Chain of Inference

4. Imagining the Mind: Empathy and Misreading in Much Ado About Nothing

I. Epistemology of the Blush

II: Imagination as Contagion

III: Extended Mind and the Ecology of Emotion

IV: Overconfidence in Empathy

5. Integrating Minds: Blending Methods in The King Is Alive and Twelfth Night

I: Characters of the Desert in Kristian Levring’s The King is Alive

II: Conceiving Ambiguity in Twelfth Night

6. Finding the Frame: Inference in Romeo and Juliet

I: Seeing Death on Shakespeare’s Stage

II: Spontaneous Generation as a Frame for Mindreading

III: Decaying Matter and Cognitive Ecology

IV: Thinking Through Corpses in Romeo and Juliet

7. Reading Incoherence: How Shakespeare Speaks Back to Cognitive Science

I: The Glass Delusion as a Model for Transparency

II: Hamlet’s Finite Space of Solitary Confinement

III: Opaque Melancholy in The Two Noble Kinsmen

IV: Cognitive Science and Deficit Models of Disability

V: Shakespeare’s Use of Incoherence in King Lear

VI: Balancing Inference and Imagination

8: Mindreading as Engagement: Active Spectators and “The Strangers’ Case”

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Helms uses the tools of cognitive science to reveal the ways Shakespeare’s plays instruct audiences and readers in the nuances of mindreading—the construction of others’ thoughts from bodily evidence and by imaginative extrapolation. In addition to making a clear and compelling case for using current cognitive theory to decipher Renaissance texts, Helms gives us innovative readings—revisiting Lucrece’s trauma for her failed efforts to read Tarquin, treating Iago as a kind of psychic parasite, thinking about death in Verona through the lives of carrion flies—that reinvigorate Shakespeare studies.” (Karen Raber, Professor of English, University of Mississippi, USA)

“Cognition, Mindreading, and Shakespeare’s Characters brilliantly brings together sensitive and critical accounts of research in the contemporary cognitive sciences; deft close readings of Shakespeare’s plays; and a fresh approach to character criticism. Helms breaks new ground in the field; his emphasis upon misreadings and other forms of error both draws upon and critiques cognitive theories of mind, resulting in an interdisciplinary study that is genuinely bi-directional.” (Evelyn Tribble, Professor of English, University of Connecticut, USA)