Shakespeares Mirrors

Download or read book Shakespeare’s Mirrors written by Edward Evans and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-09-26 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Clear mirrors and The Geneva Bible, revolutionary innovations of the Elizabethan age, inspired Shakespeare’s drive towards a new purpose for drama. Shakespeare reversed the conventional mirror metaphor for drama, implying drama cannot reflect the substance of human nature, and developed a method of characterization, through metadrama, self-awareness and soliloquy, to project St. Paul’s idea of conscience onto the Elizabethan stage. This revolutionary method of characterization, aesthetic existence beyond performance, has long been sensed but remains frustratingly uncategorized. Shakespeare’s Mirrors charts the invention of a drama that staged the unstageable: St. Paul’s metaphysical conception of human nature glimpsed through a looking glass darkly.

Download or read book Shakespeare's Courtly Mirror written by David Haley and published by University of Delaware Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A leading premise of Haley's book is that modern psychological constructs are inadequate for understanding the courtly humanism dramatized by Shakespeare down to 1604. Renaissance culture knows nothing of the bourgeois subject of Locke, Freud, and Lacan. Shakespeare defines aristocratic identity in epic terms and presents not an autonomous individual but a hero whose persona is determined publicly in the "courtly mirror." That exemplary mirror, from Henry IV to Measure for Measure, reflects the heroic actions of rulers and courtiers. The historical self-awareness of Henry, Hal, and Brutus assumes a more contemporary aspect in the courtly self-consciousness of Hamlet, Duke Vincentio, and the three main characters of All's Well That Ends Well: Bertram, Helena, the King." "The "reflexivity" in the title does not indicate the self-referentiality of language, nor does it refer to the traditional paradigm of consciousness implying stable self-knowledge. Courtly reflexivity is oriented toward praxis rather than introspection. Before taking action, the courtier or cortigiana - Helena is a good example - knows only that (s)he is not what (s)he is. The courtier's deliberation is guided by a reflexive, self-regulating prudence that is usually identified with honor or love. In All's Well, Shakespeare contrasts this self-providence or heroic prudence with Divine Providence, but he does so obliquely. While focusing exclusively upon a court which prizes worldly action, he sustains his contrast through a series of ironical allusions to Scripture." "Beginning with a prologue on the problems raised by structural and theatrical interpretations of Bertram's role, Haley goes on to introduce his concept of reflexivity by way of an exchange with the new literary historicism. Chapters 1 to 3 follow the courtly debate over providence and honor, through Helena's triumph in act 2 to Bertram's deserting her. The collapse of her providential design coincides with the crisis of the sick King's honor - a crisis which Shakespeare describes alchemically, implying that alchemy, understood as reflexive chemistry, offers another mirror of the courtier's self-providence." "Chapter 4, the center of the book, brings together historical providence and Boccaccian prudence (avvedimento) in the figure of Ahab, with whom Shakespeare compares both Bertram and the Hal of Henry V. Chapters 5 to 7 pursue Shakespeare's ironic parallel between biblical Providence and courtly prudence, examining specific scenes of self-judgment and self-betrayal in the Henriad and Measure for Measure, as well as in All's Well."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Download or read book Shakespeare's "Histories" written by Lily Bess Campbell and published by . This book was released on 1958 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Shakespeare's Webs written by Arthur F. Kinney and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, renowned Renaissance drama critic Arthur F. Kinney argues that Shakespeare's method of composing plays through networks of meanings can be seen as a harbinger of today's information technology. Drawing upon hypertext and cognitive theory--areas that have for some time promised to take on more importance in the sphere of Shakespeare Studies--as well as the central metaphor of the Routledge collection The Renaissance Computer, Kinney looks in detail at four objects/images in Shakespeare's plays--mirrors, maps, clocks, and books--and explores the ways in which they make up networks of meaning within single plays and across the dramatist's body of work that anticipate in some ways the networks of meaning or "information" now possible in the computer age.

Download or read book Shakespeare’s Things written by Brett Gamboa and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Floating daggers, enchanted handkerchiefs, supernatural storms, and moving statues have tantalized Shakespeare’s readers and audiences for centuries. The essays in Shakespeare’s Things: Shakespearean Theatre and the Non-Human World in History, Theory, and Performance renew attention to non-human influence and agency in the plays, exploring how Shakespeare anticipates new materialist thought, thing theory, and object studies while presenting accounts of intention, action, and expression that we have not yet noticed or named. By focusing on the things that populate the plays—from commodities to props, corpses to relics—they find that canonical Shakespeare, inventor of the human, gives way to a lesser-known figure, a chronicler of the ceaseless collaboration among persons, language, the stage, the object world, audiences, the weather, the earth, and the heavens.

Download or read book Shakespeare’s Speculative Art written by M. Hunt and published by Springer. This book was released on 2011-07-14 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book-length analysis of Shakespeare s depiction of specula (mirrors) to reveal the literal and allegorical functions of mirrors in the playwright s art and thought. Adding a new dimension to the plays Troilus and Cressida, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Hamlet, King Henry the Fifth, Love s Labor s Lost, A Midsummer Night s Dream, and All s Well That Ends Well, Maurice A. Hunt also references mirrors in a wide range of external sources, from the Bible to demonic practices. Looking at the concept of speculation through its multiple meanings - cognitive, philosophical, hypothetical, and provisional - this original reading suggests Shakespeare as a craftsman so prescient and careful in his art that he was able to criticize the queen and a former patron with such impunity that he could still live as a gentleman.

Download or read book Latin American Shakespeares written by Bernice W. Kliman and published by Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Latin American Shakespeares is a collection of essays that treats the reception of Shakespeare in Latin American contexts. Arranged in three sections, the essays reflect on performance, translation, parody, and influence, finding both affinities to and differences from Anglo integrations of the plays. Bernice J. Kliman is Professor Emeritus at Nassau Community College. Rick J. Santos teaches at Nassau Community College.