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1579 drawing of the Great Chain of Being from Didacus Valades , Rhetorica Christiana. The great chain of being is a hierarchical structure of all matter and life, thought by medieval Christianity to have been decreed by God. The chain begins with God and descends through angels, humans, animals and plants to minerals. [1] [2] [3]
Likewise the division of human life into a series of ages was a commonplace of art and literature, which Shakespeare would have expected his audiences to recognize. The number of ages varied: three and four being the most common among ancient writers such as Aristotle. The concept of seven ages derives from ancient Greek philosophy.
Arthur Oncken Lovejoy (October 10, 1873 – December 30, 1962) was an American philosopher and intellectual historian, who founded the discipline known as the history of ideas with his book The Great Chain of Being (1936), on the topic of that name, which is regarded as 'probably the single most influential work in the history of ideas in the United States during the last half century'. [1]
It is mentioned by the character Costard in Act V, Scene I of William Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost. As it appears only once in Shakespeare's works, it is a hapax legomenon in the Shakespeare canon. At 27 letters, it is the longest word in the English language to strictly alternate between consonants and vowels. [1]
Shakespeare's plays were both a product of and a contributor to the Tudor myth and King Richard III's portrayal. His play was written with hindsight in mind, so he was aware of the events that followed King Richard III's reign. [7] With this information in mind, Shakespeare set out to disparage King Richard III's character.
[3] He notes the following meanings used in these two sonnets: [4] (a) what one wishes to have or do (b) the auxiliary verb indicating futurity and/or purpose (c) lust, carnal desire (d) the male sex organ (e) the female sex organ (f) an abbreviation of "William" (Shakespeare's first name, conceivably also the name of the Dark Lady's husband)
Illustration of the analogy between the human body and a geocentric cosmos: the head is analogous to the cœlum empyreum, closest to the divine light of God; the chest to the cœlum æthereum, occupied by the classical planets (wherein the heart is analogous to the sun); the abdomen to the cœlum elementare; the legs to the dark earthy mass (molis terreæ) which supports this universe.
Sonnet 62 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a member of the Fair Youth sequence, addressed to the young man with whom Shakespeare shares an intimate but tormented connection. This sonnet brings together a number of themes that run through the cycle: the speaker's awareness of social and ...