philosophy and theatre an introduction

commitments within this apparently harmonious ethical life: Creon is associated with man-made law (i.e. human rather than divine ...

also about cats and birds, perhaps predators and prey. For these sorts of reasons, the idea that we learn from theatrical perfor ...

Rome: Caesar and Brutusarethe turbulent times in the history of Rome; historical events and historicalfigures are the central su ...

Even with regard to explicit statements, Russell’s claim requires serious qualification. First of all, there’s a great deal more ...

he explicitly praises Shakespeare as better history (i.e. better at representing specific historical conflicts) than Schiller, e ...

difference to us; it has no connection (I would suggest) with whatever it is that we think we learn from plays like Hamlet.^20 T ...

not just a question of having to‘inject the spirit of his period into the ancient world’, of the playwright explaining and makin ...

expressed by Aristotle, and I focus on his view, although he is by no means the only one.^23 Aristotle, recall, argued that trag ...

(historia), which means research or investigation, suggesting‘history’in the second of these two senses. This is the word that i ...

of character as playwrights had hitherto conceived of it was completely false. People change their minds, act irrationally and b ...

look like if those events were really to take place). We discussed this point in relation to Plato’s arguments aboutmimesis, so ...

truth-seeker, or both? Does it say that what happens to such a type is that he always comes to no good, or that heprobablycomes ...

know what the Greeks were up to until it was too late.^47 The history play is the telling, or retelling, of the familiar story.^ ...

in the assemblies of the people and in the senate, at their debating; in the streets, at their seditions; and in thefield, at th ...

knowing how does not consist in the knowledge of any particular propo- sition; second, knowing how manifests itself in having a ...

conclusion). Plays are more vivid than books. Perhaps they are easier to remember. Plays might (like diagrams, maps or dioramas) ...

been dissident voices.^36 But the question of what the illusion is and the related question of whether the audience is in some s ...

the human being who lived, breathed and was guillotined in 1794, having apparently shot himself in the face. Plays do not need t ...

Optical illusion The Fraser Spiral (seefigure) is an optical illusion: it is carefully con- structed in such a way that it looks ...

of a set of facts about the past. Those facts are interpreted and a version of them is presented to the audience. As before, tho ...