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The Elizabethan Mind

Searching for the Self in an Age of Uncertainty

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The Elizabethan Mind

By: Helen Hackett
Narrated by: Helen Lloyd
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About this listen

The first comprehensive guide to Elizabethan ideas about the mind

What is the mind? How does it relate to the body and soul? These questions were as perplexing for the Elizabethans as they are for us today—although their answers were often startlingly different. Shakespeare and his contemporaries believed the mind was governed by the humors and passions, and was susceptible to the Devil’s interference.

In this insightful and wide-ranging account, Helen Hackett explores the intricacies of Elizabethan ideas about the mind. This was a period of turbulence and transition, as persistent medieval theories competed with revived classical ideas and emerging scientific developments. Drawing on a wealth of sources, Hackett sheds new light on works by Shakespeare, Marlowe, Sidney, and Spenser, demonstrating how ideas about the mind shaped new literary and theatrical forms. Looking at their conflicted attitudes to imagination, dreams, and melancholy, Hackett examines how Elizabethans perceived the mind, soul, and self, and how their ideas compare with our own.

©2022 Helen Hackett (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing 16th Century Europe Great Britain Literary History & Criticism Modern Thought-Provoking Tudor Elizabethan History
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raises interesting points and explores a lot of Elizabethen literature to demonstrate the understanding behind them. looks at literature trends to ascertain popularity of interest and thought of the time. Good narrator, very calming relaxing voice.

interesting topics

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Beautifully read by a soothing voice which makes for perfect bed-time listening. Helpfully labelled for the curious listener to jump around between topics that interest them. (Why don’t more audiobooks do this?!)
It is something of a cliche to point out that the Tudors were so different from us, yet so very like us too. But, if you really want to grasp what went on inside the heads of these people (the educated and the semi-educated ones, at least?) and why it was such an exciting time to be alive for those interested in arts, sciences and their ever expanding world, then you can do far worse than listen to this book.
Insightful, methodical, careful and granular: the author clearly KNOWS her topic.
An exercise in historical empathy of the highest order and in the strictest possible sense of that term, “empathy.” You get to see glimpses of the world through the eyes, ears, tastes, smells and touches of a Tudor and that is like owning a Time Machine of the mind.
Not for the Tudor-Light, or Tudor-Casuals, perhaps? You decide. But if you love your Tudor history, but grow a little weary of yet another spin on Henry VIII or Queen Elizabeth and are looking for something a bit more substantial, you will probably love this.

Deeply Fascinating

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