1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910456272403321

Autore

Cohen Derek

Titolo

Searching Shakespeare : studies in culture and authority / / Derek Cohen

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Toronto, [Ontario] ; ; Buffalo, [New York] ; ; London, [England] : , : University of Toronto Press, , 2003

©2003

ISBN

1-281-99448-0

9786611994488

1-4426-7968-9

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (212 p.)

Disciplina

822.33

Soggetti

National characteristics, English, in literature

Politics and literature - Great Britain

Nationalism and literature - England

Literature and society - England

Literature and history - England

Individuality in literature

Authority in literature

Culture in literature

Tragedy

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- PART I -- CHAPTER ONE. Tragedy and the Nation: Othello -- CHAPTER TWO. History and the Nation: The Second Tetralogy -- CHAPTER THREE. Slave Voices: Caliban and Ariel -- CHAPTER FOUR. The Scapegoat Mechanism: Shylock and Caliban -- PART II -- CHAPTER FIVE. The Self-Representations of Othello -- CHAPTER SIX. King Lear and Memory -- CHAPTER SEVEN. The Past of Macbeth -- PART III -- CHAPTER EIGHT. Messengers of Death: The Figure of the Hit Man -- CHAPTER NINE. 'Noseless, handless, hack'd and chipp'd':1 Broken Human Bodies --



Notes -- Works Cited -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Original in topic and approach, Searching Shakespeare presents a political-historical exploration of Shakespeare's drama, examining the plays in the context of current ideological concerns ? history, memory, marginality, and nationalism. Derek Cohen predicates his argument on the supposition that the individual, as much as the encompassing state, is subject to the shaping forces and machinery of the ideological surround.Shakespeare's plays, Cohen argues, consistently portray the clash between the passionate search for individuality and the quest for social harmony as irresolvable. The playwright's uncanny ability to carry the reader to the edge of imaginary experience ? far from the literal world that is made visible by the text ? offers an entry into the subtextual and ironic underside of the dramas. It is in this dark and strange world of slavery, mutilation, sexual jealousy, and suborned murder that the implicit political biases of the plays are most evident and it is here, too, that a modern political analysis reveals why Shakespeare portrayed the quest for individuation and self-expression as necessarily ending in tragedy.