Abstract

Jacek Bartyzel, Cosmos and Human Nature in William Shakespeare’s
Anthropology.

The article is concerned with the ambiguity of the term ‘nature’ in
Shakespeare’s dramas. The term is closely connected with the concept
of ‘order’ meaning the hierarchical system of beings in the cosmos
and – analogically – in the human cosmion. However, the naturalness
of this order is subject to various interferences caused by the disruption
of ‘degrees’. This polarity of order and disorder, naturalness and unnaturalness is translated in the human world into two concepts of
natural law. The first contains the quality of the objective ordo which
is inscribed in human nature and which is recognized by one’s conscience
as moral dictates of the righteous reason; it corresponds to classical
concepts of natural law – the ones of Aristotle, Cicero and Saint
Thomas Aquinas – a law that is eternal, unchanging and of the divine
origin. The second identifies natural law with the laws of nature where
nature is interpreted as phýsis (from Greek), the laws that were also
in existence in the pre-social natural state. This concept treats moral
dictates as social conventions, contracts and customs, the use of which
depends on usefulness. This kind of view corresponds to the tradition
of sophists as well as to Machiavelli and Hobbes. Based on the analysis
of the anthropological vision presented in King Lear and in Troilus and
Cressida, the author concludes that, while giving voice, in accordance
with the principles of dramatic art, to representatives of both concepts,
Shakespeare tends to prefer the first one.