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PASSION, VIRTUE, AND MODERATION IN SHAKESPEAREAN DRAMA
by
Unhae Park Langis
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(ENGLISH)
August 2008
Copyright 2008 Unhae Park Langis
Object Description
| Title | Passion, virtue, and moderation in Shakespearean drama |
| Author | Langis, Unhae Park |
| Author email | langis@usc.edu |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | English |
| School | College of Letters, Arts and Sciences |
| Date defended/completed | 2007-11-26 |
| Date submitted | 2008 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2008-07-30 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Smith, Bruce R. |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Lemon, Rebecca Farenda, Vincent |
| Abstract | This study grounds itself in the humanist discourses of the passions, virtue, and moderation. By all accounts of English Renaissance literature and culture, virtue represented an important social ideal as the full realization of the human potential. Virtue, for the early moderns, entailed the interactivity of self-knowledge and moderation -- the self-governance of the passions -- towards the highest goods. Moderation, as broadly conceived for this study, includes both its dispositional and active forms: temperance and prudence, respectively. Drawn from the classical and humanist tradition, moderation becomes the marshaling of affect and action toward best ends.; To this effect, Shakespeare's conception of virtuous moderation, I argue, deploys rather than decries the passions towards the good. As richly illustrated throughout his plays, this integrative moderation also subsumes prudential action within virtue. Situated in the recent return to ethics and classical studies as well as interest in materialist and phenomenological studies of the early modern passions, my project tries to give a fuller account of moral agency by drawing from these various approaches. My neo-Aristotelian, situational method of interpreting human action, I believe, enables valuable, otherwise unattainable insights into character and action, and the early modern ethical and affective experience as it sheds light on twenty-first century grappling with identity and agency.; While grounded in humanist ethics, this study at the same time incisively revises conventional gender conceptions to present a dynamic countermodel to male-inflected virtue. Contrary to classical and humanist notions that moderation is the property of the ideal man, this examination demonstrates abundantly that moderation is rather the special province of the virtuous virago. Such is the result when male-inflected virtue is re-defined as an integrative, human excellence, harmonizing passion and reason. Traversing through The Taming of the Shrew, Othello, All's Well That Ends Well, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus, this project reveals the dynamic complexity and scope of Shakespeare's dramatization of moderation from the domestic, mercantile, and courtly spheres to the imperial and civic arenas. |
| Keyword | Shakespeare; ethics; virtue; self; drama; emotion |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m1440 |
| Rights | Langis, Unhae Park |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | http://www.usc.edu/isd/libraries/services/ask_a_librarian/email/ |
| Filename | etd-Langis-20080730 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume23/etd-Langis-20080730.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Full text | PASSION, VIRTUE, AND MODERATION IN SHAKESPEAREAN DRAMA by Unhae Park Langis A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (ENGLISH) August 2008 Copyright 2008 Unhae Park Langis |
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