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
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Page 2
... spiritual bankruptcy of late capitalism . Increasingly omnipresent in a more and more ' virtual ' world , advertising serves its own ends ( and those of its masters ) by creating , stimulating and exploiting shameless desire ; the ...
... spiritual bankruptcy of late capitalism . Increasingly omnipresent in a more and more ' virtual ' world , advertising serves its own ends ( and those of its masters ) by creating , stimulating and exploiting shameless desire ; the ...
Page 8
... spiritual health and realisation of the world beyond egoism . This ethical achievement is a necessary precondition for the just politics which so much recent criticism of Shakespeare has nobly championed . It is not merely that the ...
... spiritual health and realisation of the world beyond egoism . This ethical achievement is a necessary precondition for the just politics which so much recent criticism of Shakespeare has nobly championed . It is not merely that the ...
Page 12
... spiritual shame the loss of virtue as goodness ; the former typically leads to renewed , sometimes violent , self - assertion , the latter to repentance . I have suggested already that there is a deficit of moral shame today , though ...
... spiritual shame the loss of virtue as goodness ; the former typically leads to renewed , sometimes violent , self - assertion , the latter to repentance . I have suggested already that there is a deficit of moral shame today , though ...
Page 13
... spiritual shame , particularly for a man : for instance , it may seem shamefully passive not to retaliate but morally shameful to strike back . And yet , in spite of all these variations and subtleties , and in spite of historical ...
... spiritual shame , particularly for a man : for instance , it may seem shamefully passive not to retaliate but morally shameful to strike back . And yet , in spite of all these variations and subtleties , and in spite of historical ...
Page 20
... spiritual death . This is evident in ordinary language : ' I was mortified ' , ' I could have died of shame ' . Creative writers have sometimes made the closeness of death and shame explicit : as we shall see , several of Shakespeare's ...
... spiritual death . This is evident in ordinary language : ' I was mortified ' , ' I could have died of shame ' . Creative writers have sometimes made the closeness of death and shame explicit : as we shall see , several of Shakespeare's ...
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