Shame in ShakespeareRoutledge, 2012 M09 10 - 288 pages One of the most intense and painful of our human passions, shame is typically seen in contemporary culture as a disability or a disease to be cured. Shakespeare's ultimately positive portrayal of the emotion challenges this view. Drawing on philosophers and theorists of shame, Shame in Shakespeare analyses the shame and humiliation suffered by the tragic hero, providing not only a new approach to Shakespeare but a committed and provocative argument for reclaiming shame. The volume provides: · an account of previous traditions of shame and of the Renaissance context · a thematic map of the rich manifestations of both masculine and feminine shame in Shakespeare · detailed readings of Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear · an analysis of the limitations of Roman shame in Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus · a polemical discussion of the fortunes of shame in modern literature after Shakespeare. The book presents a Shakespearean vision of shame as the way to the world outside the self. It establishes the continued vitality and relevance of Shakespeare and offers a fresh and exciting way of seeing his tragedies. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 40
Page 2
... less hackneyed subject than , say , love or death . As a culture we are perhaps now remembering shame . This is partly because of the spiritual bankruptcy of late capitalism . Increasingly omnipresent in a more and more ' virtual ...
... less hackneyed subject than , say , love or death . As a culture we are perhaps now remembering shame . This is partly because of the spiritual bankruptcy of late capitalism . Increasingly omnipresent in a more and more ' virtual ...
Page 4
... less from a committed critical position than from direct engagement with Shakespeare's text . In this respect , it represents a polemical intervention in favour of the new turn in criticism towards empiricism and the aesthetic . In ...
... less from a committed critical position than from direct engagement with Shakespeare's text . In this respect , it represents a polemical intervention in favour of the new turn in criticism towards empiricism and the aesthetic . In ...
Page 6
... less productive of shame . We will discover in the course of this book that shame in Shakespeare works as an ethical wake - up call , the dissolution of the anxious subject's phantasmal self automatically revealing the world beyond it ...
... less productive of shame . We will discover in the course of this book that shame in Shakespeare works as an ethical wake - up call , the dissolution of the anxious subject's phantasmal self automatically revealing the world beyond it ...
Page 7
... less modish thinker , Iris Murdoch , supplies this deficiency . Like Levinas , Murdoch argues for the intrinsic poverty of selfhood and locates fulfilment in selfless relation- ship , but she is sternly realistic about the arduous moral ...
... less modish thinker , Iris Murdoch , supplies this deficiency . Like Levinas , Murdoch argues for the intrinsic poverty of selfhood and locates fulfilment in selfless relation- ship , but she is sternly realistic about the arduous moral ...
Page 11
... less concerned with what it is that is disgraceful , mortified by exposure but unrepentant . As the inventors of the stocks and the pillory well knew , the actual presence , the gaze , of a hostile or accusing audience is a strong ...
... less concerned with what it is that is disgraceful , mortified by exposure but unrepentant . As the inventors of the stocks and the pillory well knew , the actual presence , the gaze , of a hostile or accusing audience is a strong ...
Contents
1 | |
24 | |
Shame in the Renaissance | 41 |
Shame in Shakespeare | 74 |
Hamlet | 109 |
Othello | 136 |
King Lear | 173 |
Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus | 208 |
Conclusion | 224 |
Notes | 247 |
References | 255 |
Index | 265 |
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Common terms and phrases
accept action already Antony audience becomes beginning blush body calls Cassio chapter Christian classical Cleopatra Cordelia Coriolanus corruption critics culture daughter death deformity degradation Desdemona desire disgrace effect ethical example experience exposed exposure expression eyes face fall father fear feels figure finds Fool gives guilt Hamlet hand heart hero honour human Iago identity killing kind King Lear later Lear's less lines literature live look lost Measure moral mother nature never notes once original Othello pain particular partly perhaps person play presents puts reading reason recognises religious Renaissance René Girard represents revealed revenge Richard says scene seems seen sense sense of shame sexual Shakespeare shame shamelessness Sonnet soul speak spiritual stage suffering suggests takes tells theatre thing thou thought tion tragedy true truth turn ultimately wife worldly writes