1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910300007203321

Autore

Thomas Alfred <1958->

Titolo

Shakespeare, Catholicism, and the Middle Ages [[electronic resource] ] : Maimed Rights / / by Alfred Thomas

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cham : , : Springer International Publishing : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2018

ISBN

3-319-90218-0

Edizione

[1st ed. 2018.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (268 pages)

Collana

The New Middle Ages

Disciplina

822.33

Soggetti

Literature, Medieval

Literature, Modern

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616

Literature—History and criticism

Medieval Literature

Shakespeare

Literary History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

1. Introduction: Maimed Rights in Shakespeare’s England -- 2. Pride and Penitence: Political and Moral Allegory in Medieval Arthurian Romance and Richard II -- 3. Demonizing the Other: “The Prioress’s Tale,” The Jew of Malta, and The Merchant of Venice -- 4. Writing, Memory, and Revenge in Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Hamlet -- 5. Afterlives of the Martyrs: King Lear, The Duchess of Malfi, and The Virgin Martyr -- 6. “Remember the Porter”: Memorializing the Medieval Drama and the Gunpowder Plot in Macbeth -- 7. Conclusion: Shakespeare “Our Contemporary”.

Sommario/riassunto

Whereas traditional scholarship assumed that William Shakespeare used the medieval past as a negative foil to legitimate the present, Shakespeare, Catholicism, and the Middle Ages offers a revisionist perspective, arguing that the playwright valorizes the Middle Ages in order to critique the oppressive nature of the Tudor-Stuart state. In examining Shakespeare’s Richard II, The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and The Winter’s Tale, the text explores how



Shakespeare repossessed the medieval past to articulate political and religious dissent. By comparing these and other plays by Shakespeare’s contemporaries with their medieval analogues, Alfred Thomas argues that Shakespeare was an ecumenical writer concerned with promoting tolerance in a highly intolerant and partisan age. .