{"product_id":"causal-shakespeare-eric-langley-9780197914328","title":"Causal Shakespeare","description":"To ask, with Hamlet, the deceptively simple question 'what is the cause?', is, as this study demonstrates, to get to the heart of some of the early-modern period's most resonant, far-reaching, and contested topics. It is a question that informs everything from the largest metaphysical enquiries to the tiniest instances of particulate physics, asking what this study shows to be one of the most pertinent questions of a philosophically ambitious, intellectually aspirational, theologically destabilized age. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eTaking \u003cem\u003eKing Lear \u003c\/em\u003eas its focus, this book situates Shakespeare and his world-weary tragedy at the intersection of major epistemic trajectories in philosophical, religious, and scientific thought. Shakespeare's play, it argues, was produced at a crisis-point, a crux at which confidence in an older metaphysical order was being incrementally eroded, and was yet to be recuperated by the advent of the 'new' physics and later natural-scientific philosophies. Shakespeare writes, in short, at a moment of profound causal uncertainty, conscious of cultural change, and yet not confident of the wisdom of his age's purported progress. Consequently, \u003cem\u003eKing\u003c\/em\u003e \u003cem\u003eLear\u003c\/em\u003e is shown to be a play riven by causal scepticism and deep-seated intellectual doubt, in which Shakespeare cycles through a rich array of classical analogues, philosophical influences, biblical sources, and literary intertexts, finding each unfit for the Machiavellian machinations and politic purposes of an incipient modern age. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis ambitious and far-reaching study offers a new understanding of Shakespeare's philosophical underpinnings, illuminating his active, informed participation in an aetiological debate that should be understood as the key epistemological enquiry of his time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Eric Langley\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0197914322\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780197914328\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Oxford University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 11\/27\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 464\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover","brand":"Eric Langley","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":49084112404735,"sku":"9780197914328","price":155.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/causal-shakespeare-eric-langley-9780197914328","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}