Table of Contents

Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being (1993 corrected & expanded paperback edition)

INTRODUCTION

PART I: The Immature Phase of the Tragic Equation

CHAPTER 1: Conception and Gestation of the Equation's Tragic Myth: the Sonnets, Venus and Adonis, Lucrece

• Shakespeare turns to poetry
• The Sonnets as the matrix of Venus and Adonis
• Venus and Adonis as theology
• The Sonnets and Shakespeare's love
• The Dark Lady and the Goddess
• Venus and Adonis: the Tragic Equation's moment of conception
• Venus and Adonis and the Hippolytus of Euripides
• Historical background of the Tragic Equation
• Lucrece as a metaphysical poem
• The contrapuntal symmetry of Venus and Adonis and Lucrece
• Shakespeare's vision as prophecy
• Venus and Adonis as a shamanic initiation dream

CHAPTER 2: Birth, Childhood and Adolescence of the Tragic Equation: As You Like It, All's Well that Ends Well, A Lover's Complaint, Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida

• Shakespeare takes up the spiritual quest
• As You Like It: Jaques
• Two kinds of ritual drama
• As You Like It: the ritual pattern
• Autobiography in All's Well that Ends Well
• All's Well: the ritual pattern
• All's Well: entry of the Mythic Equation
• The three sources of All's Well that Ends Well
• Shakespeare's double language and the verbal device
• The evolutionary history of the verbal device
• The double language as translation
• The double language in All's Well that Ends Well
• Shakespeare's hieroglyphic system
• The verbal device and Tragic Equation as brain maps
• A Lover's Complaint: the heroine's guilty secret
• Measure for Measure: the Mythic Equation comes to consciousness
• Troilus and Cressida: the Mythic Equation becomes the Tragic Equation
• Troilus and Cressida: the new factor and the different madness
• The Trojan War: the incubation of the Tragic Equation
• The secret nature of Diomed
• The Boar's track into the battle
• The Hunt staged as the death of Hector
• The Trojan War as two warped mirrors
• Troilus and Cressida as the first Tragedy of Divine Love

PART II: The Evolution of the Tragic Equation through the Seven Tragedies

INTRODUCTION

• The dominance of the mythic plane
• The constant factors of the Shakespearean moment
• Variants
• The tragic madness

CHAPTER 3: The Tragic Equation Matures and Mutates: Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear

• At wit's end
• Othello: the Iago factor
• Othello: the Tragic Equation in the body
• Hamlet: the Tragic Equation in the mind
• Macbeth: X-ray of the Shakespearean moment
• King Lear: a triple Tragic Equation
• King Lear as a reactivation of its mythic sources
• Lear, the Fool, Mad Tom and Cordelia
• The silence of Cordelia

CHAPTER 4: The Tragic Equation Makes Its Soul: Timon of Athens, Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra

• Subterranean transition
• Timon of Athens: the Tragic Equation without the Female
• Coriolanus: the Female survives the Tragic Equation
• The tragic hero as the Rival Brother
• Antony and Cleopatra as a bridging work
• Antony and Cleopatra: the new factors
• Antony and Cleopatra as a tragedy
• Antony and Cleopatra as a theophany

PART III: The Transformation of the Tragic Equation in the Last Plays

INTRODUCTION

• The impossible thing
• Root meanings of the Equation
• The magician's task

CHAPTER 5: The Tragic Hero Brought to Judgement: Cymbeline, Pericles, The Winter's Tale

• The mutant emerges
• Cymbeline: the tragic hero reborn
• Pericles and the Gnostic myth of Sophia
• The Tragic Equation in court
• The Winter's Tale: the cry and the silence
• The Winter's Tale: Leontes as the tragic error
• The Winter's Tale: the Tragic Equation becomes a theophany
• The pattern of the Gnostic Coda in The Winter's Tale
• Hermione's plea as the voice of Heaven and Earth

CHAPTER 6: The Dismantling of the Tragic Equation: The Tempest

• The beginning in the end
• The Tempest as a Gnostic coda
• The Storm
• The evolution of the Storm up to Macbeth
• The two selves of the Flower
• The Storm changes planes: Macbeth's vision
• The Storm passes to the Female
• The Storm and the Flower
• The Tragic Equation in The Tempest
• Prospero's tripartite brother
• The Tempest and Dido
• Miranda as Dido reborn
• The Gnostic pattern in The Tempest
• Ulysses and the mythic background of The Tempest
• Circe
• The Tempest: a precarious moment in the alchemy
• Ariel and the Harpy
• The Masque in The Tempest: the defeat of Venus
• The Masque as the nativity of a god
• The Masque as the twin birth of Tragedy and Transcendence
• The triumph of the lame hunter
• The Tempest as a keyboard for playing the Complete Works
• Caliban's genetic make-up
• Prospero dismantles the Tragic Equation
• Ariel's ancestry
• The evolution of Shakespeare's poetry: the Boar, the Storm and the Flower
• The Equation in five early plays
• Caliban's blackness

POSTSCRIPT: The Boar with a Flower in its Mouth

APPENDICES

I. The Tragic Equation in Henry VIII and Two Noble Kinsmen
II. The Perpetuum Mobile
III. The Equation in The Merchant of Venice