Shame in ShakespeareOne 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
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Perhaps – even more worrying – they never could. The aim of Accents on Shakespeare is to encourage students and teachers to explore the implications of this situation by means of an engagement with the major developments in Shakespeare ...
Perhaps – even more worrying – they never could. The aim of Accents on Shakespeare is to encourage students and teachers to explore the implications of this situation by means of an engagement with the major developments in Shakespeare ...
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To use Levinas's own arresting phrases, the subject is the hostage of the other; it is persecuted by the other, from whose domination it can never escape. Since its subjectivity is entirely founded on the other, it is responsible to the ...
To use Levinas's own arresting phrases, the subject is the hostage of the other; it is persecuted by the other, from whose domination it can never escape. Since its subjectivity is entirely founded on the other, it is responsible to the ...
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... never runs away, but I have done so: I am no true soldier'. This negative self-apprehension is experienced as debasement, defilement or disfigurement. The feeling of disfigurement or deformity seems best to express the sensation of ...
... never runs away, but I have done so: I am no true soldier'. This negative self-apprehension is experienced as debasement, defilement or disfigurement. The feeling of disfigurement or deformity seems best to express the sensation of ...
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A feeling of shame is never purely external; as Cairns puts it, 'in every case [it] is a matter of the self's judging the self in terms of some ideal that is one's own', although that ideal may be socially derived (Cairns 1993: 16).
A feeling of shame is never purely external; as Cairns puts it, 'in every case [it] is a matter of the self's judging the self in terms of some ideal that is one's own', although that ideal may be socially derived (Cairns 1993: 16).
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... not a virtue, defined as fear of ill-repute, which attends ill-action; praiseworthy in a younger man, but culpable in his elder, yet only because he should never give himself occasion to feel it (Aristotle 1988: 169–70).
... not a virtue, defined as fear of ill-repute, which attends ill-action; praiseworthy in a younger man, but culpable in his elder, yet only because he should never give himself occasion to feel it (Aristotle 1988: 169–70).
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Contents
Shame in the Renaissance | |
Shame in Shakespeare | |
Hamlet | |
Othello | |
King Lear | |
Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus | |
Conclusion | |
Notes | |
References | |
Index | |
Other editions - View all
Shame in Shakespeare Ewan Fernie,Lecturer in English at Royal Holloway Ewan Fernie Limited preview - 2002 |
Common terms and phrases
accept action already Antony audience becomes beginning blush body calls Cassio chapter characters 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 imagines killing kind King Lear later Lear’s less lines literature live look lost Measure moral mother nature never notes once original Othello pain particularly partly perhaps person play positive presents puts reading reason recognise 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 tragedy true truth turn ultimately wife worldly writes
Bibliographic information
| Title | Shame in Shakespeare Accents on Shakespeare |
| Author | Ewan Fernie |
| Publisher | Routledge, 2012 |
| ISBN | 1134514603, 9781134514601 |
| Length | 288 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |