Late Shakespeare: A New World of Words

Late Shakespeare: A New World of Words
ISBN-10
0198186894
ISBN-13
9780198186892
Category
Drama
Pages
298
Language
English
Published
1997
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Author
Simon Palfrey

Description

Shakespeare's late plays are usually seen in terms of courtliness and escapism. But the critical tradition has been too decorous. Neither neo-Christian pieties nor high-political allegory can account for the works' audacity and surprise, or the popular investment in both their form andmeaning. Post-structuralist and historicist approaches show the indeterminacy and materiality of language, but rarely identify how particular figures (words and characters) capture and energize contested history. Recent criticism tends to put a pre-emptive 'master-paradigm' above all else; a moresinuous, minutely attentive critical vocabulary is needed to apprehend Shakespeare's turbulent, precise, teeming metaphorical discourse.

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