Shakespeare's Mirrors

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-032-72698-4
Verlag: Taylor & Francis

Buch, Englisch, 212 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 454 g

Reihe: Routledge Studies in Shakespeare

Clear mirrors and The Geneva Bible, revolutionary innovations of the Elizabethan age, inspired Shakespeare’s drive towards a new purpose for drama. Shakespeare reversed the conventional mirror metaphor for drama, implying drama cannot reflect the substance of human nature, and developed a method of characterization, through metadrama, self-awareness and soliloquy, to project St. Paul’s idea of conscience onto the Elizabethan stage. This revolutionary method of characterization, aesthetic existence beyond performance, has long been sensed but remains frustratingly uncategorized. Shakespeare’s Mirrors charts the invention of a drama that staged the unstageable: St. Paul’s metaphysical conception of human nature glimpsed through a looking glass darkly.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Evans, Edward

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Dramen und Dramatiker

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: Shakespeare’s Mirror Metaphors         

 

Prologue: “The Mirror of All Martial Men,” (Living up to Stereotypes)            

Mirrors in the Cultural and Historical Context of Sixteenth Century England   

Henry VI, Part One        

 

1.           “Amorous Looking-Glass:” The Self-Infatuation of the Regal Perfomer in the Early Histories              

Richard III and Henry VI, Parts Two and Three  

Richard II          

 

2.           “Dissembling Glass of Mine:” Female Self-Evaluation within the Patriarchal Genre of Courtship Comedy  

The Two Gentlemen of Verona 

The Comedy of Errors  

The Taming of the Shrew            

Love’s Labour’s Lost    

A Midsummer Night’s Dream   

The Merchant of Venice              

As You Like It   

 

3.           “The Mirror of All Christian Kings:” Increasing Tension between Classical Action and Christian Passivity             

Henry IV, Part Two         

Henry V              

Julius Caesar   

 

4.           “The Mirror up to Nature:” Hamlet’s Metaphysical Redirection of the Purpose of Playing Hamlet     

Metatheatre Subverting the Classical Tradition

Shakespeare’s Rivalry with Ben Jonson              

Hamlet’s Pauline Education at Wittenberg        

The Gravedigger Scene as Christian Exegesis  

Venetian Mirrors and the Representation of the Self in the Context of the Revolutionary Social and Scientific Environment of the Sixteenth Century     

 

5.           “Glassy Essence:” The Fraudulent Hypocrisy of Impious Authority              

Troilus and Cressida     

Measure for Measure   

Timon of Athens

 

6.           “Spacious Mirror:” The Epic Futility of Political Activity in a World Without Redemption King Lear              

Macbeth            

Antony and Cleopatra  

Coriolanus        

 

7.           “My Glass, Mine Own:” Human Play and Identity Reconciled Through Performative Faith Pericles, Prince of Tyre   

Cymbeline         

The Winter’s Tale           

The Tempest     

The Two Noble Kinsmen             

Henry VIII          

 

Epilogue: “Through A Glass, Darkly”

Bibliography

Über Autor(innen)

Edward Evans received his BA in Ancient and Modern History and MPhil in Oriental Studies from the University of Oxford. He received his Ph.D. in English Literature from Bar-Ilan University.