DOI: 10.1057/9781137543165.0001 Shakespeare and Cognition
Also by Neema Parvini: Shakespeare s History Plays Shakespeare and Contemporary Theory DOI: 10.1057/9781137543165.0001
Shakespeare and Cognition: Thinking Fast and Slow through Character Neema Parvini Lecturer in English Literature, University of Surrey, UK DOI: 10.1057/9781137543165.0001
Neema Parvini 2015 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-54315-8 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6 10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978-1-137-54316-5 PDF ISBN: 978-1-349-71308-0 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. www.palgrave.com/pivot DOI: 10.1057/9781137543165
Contents List of Tables Acknowledgements Introductory Note vi vii viii 1 Why Characters Matter in Shakespeare s Plays 1 2 Key Concepts: Dual-Process Theory, Heuristics and Biases 12 3 Teach Me How to Flatter You : Persuasion 23 4 Iago, Othello and Trait Ascription Bias 36 5 And Reason Panders Will : Another Look at Hamlet s Analysis Paralysis 52 Concluding Note 63 References 68 Index 73 DOI: 10.1057/9781137543165.0001 v
List of Tables 4.1 The OCEAN model of personality 42 4.2 Iago sits the Big Five personality test 42 4.3 Iago s personality test results 43 5.1 Self-focused pronouns in Hamlet s soliloquys 43 5.2 Others-focused pronouns in Hamlet s soliloquys 60 5.3 Frequency of self- versus others-focused pronouns in Hamlet s soliloquys 60 vi DOI: 10.1057/9781137543165.0002
Acknowledgements I d like to thank Marion Wynne-Davies, Adeline Johns- Putra, Greg Tate, Holly Luhning, Bran Nicol, Paul Vlitos, Brian Boyd and Andy Mousely for reading sections of this book and offering helpful comments and feedback; Benjamin Doyle for having the vision to see this through to publication; and my students for helping me think through my basic positions on Othello and Hamlet. DOI: 10.1057/9781137543165.0003 vii
Introductory Note Shakespeare and Cognition: Thinking Fast and Slow through Character hopes to move Shakespeare studies beyond the twin shackles of anti-humanist theory and antiquarian historicism and into the twenty-first century. Its academic aims are listed in the following paragraph, but its intellectual aim is to shake things up. It purports to find a way to reconnect readers and watchers of Shakespeare s plays to the fundamental questions that get them animated in the first place. Why does Anne allow herself to be wooed by Richard III, the man who killed her husband and father? Why does Othello succumb so easily to Iago s manipulations? Why does Hamlet take so long to kill Claudius? These are the sorts of questions at the heart of Shakespeare s drama and they are central to why his reputation as the world s greatest playwright has endured. This study attempts to answer them. This book draws together insights from experimental psychology and behavioural economics with particular reference to the work pioneered by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky on dual-process theory, cognitive biases and heuristics in an attempt to come to a new way of understanding the judgements and decisions made by Shakespeare s characters. In so doing, it intervenes in an ongoing debate about the resurrection of character analysis in Shakespeare studies and moves beyond the tools and terminology of Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis which have been so influential in the past. The book has two main aims: first, to show how new insights about human behaviour and the working of the human mind viii DOI: 10.1057/9781137543165.0004
Introductory Note ix can shed light on certain decisions and actions taken by Shakespeare s characters; second, to demonstrate how Shakespeare himself anticipates (and complicates) many of these recent findings in psychology. The study is divided into five chapters. Chapters 1 3 put forward the main argument. Chapter 1 comes to an understanding of the current state of play as regards character analysis in Shakespeare studies and situates this study in current debates. Chapter 2 outlines the key concepts that I hope to utilise from Kahneman and Tversky, and others. Chapter 3 demonstrates how these concepts might be used to analyse the judgements and decisions of Shakespeare s characters by focusing on his treatment of rhetoric and persuasion. Chapters 5 and 6 offer a pair of case studies to demonstrate the claims made by the previous chapter. These take the form of sustained analyses of the decisions and actions made by characters in two of Shakespeare s most complex tragedies: Othello and Hamlet. Ultimately, the book argues that Shakespeare s own understanding of human thought processes anticipates modern dual-process theory in several interesting ways: Shakespeare, like Kahneman and Tversky after him and, indeed, Aristotle and Quintilian before him understands that people, regardless of their cultural background, are swayed more by their emotions and intuitions than by reason and logic. And it is this understanding of people, above all, that has ensured that his plays continue powerfully to resonate across cultures. DOI: 10.1057/9781137543165.0004