On the concepts of inwardness and subjectivity in Shakespeare's work

Abstract

This essay aims at discussing the concepts of subjectivity and inwardness in Early Renaissance. The issue discussed in this research is to take into account that both concepts are interchangeable, since they represent distinct notions of the similar phenomenon: the inner space of sensations, emotions, feelings, and identity. The concept of identity was associated to the perception of an inner space of the subject in the 16th and 17th centuries. It was always compared and defined parting from the notion of physical and gestural appearances, whose discursive forms were always based on the perceptive movement from the outward to the inward space of the subject. On the other hand, subjectivity is a modern concept which emerges from the 19th onward whose discursive forms part form the inner space of the subject, without taking into consideration the physical and gestural appearances. This research is bibliographic and uses some examples from the dramaturg William Shakespeare. As it was observed, the concepts of subjectivity and inwardness are not synonyms, once they part from distinct philosophic and psychologic perspectives, besides that they are still perceive until our times.