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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded

The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded

Bacon, Delia
Hawthorne, Nathaniel

Paperback

Series: Cambridge Library Collection - Shakespeare and Renaissance D

Literary CriticismGeneral DramaShakespeare

ISBN10: 1108083323
ISBN13: 9781108083324
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: Sep 27 2018
Pages: 700
Weight: 1.93
Height: 1.54 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
Delia Bacon (1811-59), an American writer and dramatist, is remembered today almost exclusively for this controversial 1857 book, in which she argues that the plays of 'Shakspere' were in fact written by a coterie of highly educated aristocrats, including Francis Bacon, Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser, for the purpose of disseminating a philosophy, encoded in the works, which was not intended to be understood by the popular audiences to whom they were ostensibly directed. The book considers the intellectual context in which the plays were written, arguing that radical changes in science and society craved by Bacon were impossible under the despotism of Queen Elizabeth, but could be infiltrated into the consciousness of the elite through drama. Delia Bacon enjoyed the friendship of Hawthorne (who wrote a preface to this book), and Emerson (who thought her a 'genius', but mad). The work sparked a debate on the authorship of the plays which still continues.

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