Jan H Blits: 6 books

Spirit, Soul, and City offers a new reading of Coriolanus, Shakespeare's most political play and the last of his great tragedies. Portraying the founding of the Roman republic and the life and soul of its legendary warrior, Coriolanus, the play brings to light not only the hidden working of Rome's...

The human soul is for pre-modern philosophers the cause of both thinking and life. This double aspect of the soul, which makes man a rational animal, expresses itself above all in human action. Deadly Thought: 'Hamlet' and the Human Soul traces Hamlet's famous inability to act to his inability to...

Turning, Telling Moments in the Classical Political World examines developments in the classical political world which are both turning and telling moments. All the moments_from Theseus's founding of Athens to Augustus's establishment of the Principate_possess the double character of being turning...

Rome and the Spirit of Caesar, providing a fresh interpretation of Julius Caesar, is a thorough examination of Shakespeare’s presentation of the final throes of republican Rome’s political decay and demise and the rise of Caesarism. As in his previous studies of Shakespeare’s plays, Blits,...

This collection of essays aims to explore fundamental questions about God, human nature, and political life through careful readings of the Greek poets, the Hebrew Bible, and Shakespeare. The volume investigates the abiding tension between the Hebraic and the Hellenic dimensions of the Western soul...

The essays in this book examine the political activities and institutions of pre-Imperial Rome in conjunction with the habits of the hearts and the minds of the Romans. Relying on the writings of ancient authors, the essays analyze significant political developments and events. They attempt to draw...