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
Page 4
... put the play on in the theatre . Yet it is precisely this unpredictable power - even , and sometimes especially , in the radical and postmodern academy - which the forces of academic consensus threaten to dam up . In its unfamiliar ...
... put the play on in the theatre . Yet it is precisely this unpredictable power - even , and sometimes especially , in the radical and postmodern academy - which the forces of academic consensus threaten to dam up . In its unfamiliar ...
Page 5
... puts it , ' Shame , dear reader , is not the exclusive prop- erty of the East ' ( ibid .: 29 ) . What has changed is that we have lost the traditions - heroic and , as we shall see , more crucially Christian - which in different ways ...
... puts it , ' Shame , dear reader , is not the exclusive prop- erty of the East ' ( ibid .: 29 ) . What has changed is that we have lost the traditions - heroic and , as we shall see , more crucially Christian - which in different ways ...
Page 8
... put upon selfhood , shame throughout literary history is the experience of personal degradation or corruption . Families , nations , races may suffer collective shame , but the subject of shame is centrally the individual human person ...
... put upon selfhood , shame throughout literary history is the experience of personal degradation or corruption . Families , nations , races may suffer collective shame , but the subject of shame is centrally the individual human person ...
Page 15
... 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 ) . Like shame , guilt is a matter of violating ...
... 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 ) . Like shame , guilt is a matter of violating ...
Page 18
... puts it , we are ' valuing animals ' and shame is ' the partner of our value awareness ' ( Schneider 1992 : xix ) . The Renaissance writer Juan Huarte recognised , as much later did Scheler , that without shame we would be merely ...
... puts it , we are ' valuing animals ' and shame is ' the partner of our value awareness ' ( Schneider 1992 : xix ) . The Renaissance writer Juan Huarte recognised , as much later did Scheler , that without shame we would be merely ...
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