The Early Modern Imagination

Shakespeare and Imagination

In this course, Professor Helen Hackett (University College London) delves into the Elizabethan understanding of imagination and its effect on Shakespeare's plays. We begin with an overview of Elizabethan understandings of what imagination was. In the second module, we look at how Shakespeare plays with imagination and the concept of the playhouse as an imagination machine in A Midsummer Night's Dream. In the third, we look at the use of the chorus to demand the audience 'imagine' in Henry V. Finally, in the fourth, we look at how the portrayal of Hamlet reflects contemporary understandings of the link between imagination and melancholy.

The Early Modern Imagination

In this module, we look at commonly held beliefs about imagination in the early modern period in England, focusing in particular on: (i) the imagination was viewed negatively as a potentially dangerous mental faculty, that could disrupt reason and understanding, (ii) that the three-chamber model of the brain was often used to explain the relationship between the imagination, reason, and memory, and (iii) how women, children, and those deemed weak in reason were considered to have particularly unruly imaginations.