As You Like It is my favorite among Shakespeare’s plays, but lately it has occurred to me that I have liked it for the wrong reasons. Or, to put the matter more accurately, there are many reasons and ways to enjoy this play and while I have long recognized some of them, I have only lately noticed others. The features of the play that I have always enjoyed are still there but there are others that I only recently began to appreciate. Those are the ones I want to talk about.

Abstract: With a view to uncovering the ultimate aims of Prospero’s “project,” I consider the two great productions of his magic: the betrothal masque of Act 4 and the harpy-banquet scene of Act 3.  On the basis of a moral psychology that guides the use of his magic...

What does it mean to understand something, especially something one finds really hard  to understand? I take it that “understanding” must necessarily fall far short of “complete understanding,” which seems superhuman. More modestly, what does it mean to make a...