Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  • Cited by 55
    • Show more authors
    • You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Select format
    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      22 September 2009
      28 March 1999
      ISBN:
      9780511483745
      9780521641913
      9780521030557
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.45kg, 232 Pages
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.366kg, 232 Pages
    You may already have access via personal or institutional login
  • Selected: Digital
    Add to cart View cart Buy from Cambridge.org

    Book description

    Shakespeare and Social Dialogue deals with Shakespeare's language and the rhetoric of Elizabethan letters. Moving beyond claims about the language of individual Shakespearean characters, Magnusson analyses dialogue, conversation, sonnets and particularly letters of the period, which are normally read as historical documents, as the verbal negotiation of specific social and power relations. Thus, the rhetoric of service or friendship is explored in texts as diverse as Sidney family letters, Shakespearean sonnets and Burghley's state letters. The book draws on ideas from discourse analysis and linguistic pragmatics, especially 'politeness theory', relating these to key ideas in epistolary handbooks of the period, including those by Erasmus and Angel Day and demonstrates that Shakespeare's language is rooted in the everyday language of Elizabethan culture. Magnusson creates a way of reading both literary texts and historical documents which bridges the gap between the methods of new historicism and linguistic criticism.

    Reviews

    "In this learned three-part study, Magnusson...employs linguistic criticism and new historicism to create a new understanding of Shakespearean dialogue in terms of the social and class relationships expressed in the speech forms of the culture. Highly readable prose and sociolinguistic insights make this book essential reading for graduate students, faculty, and theater professionals." F.K. Barasch, Choice

    "Her study thus makes a strong contribution to the study of both literature and rhetoric." Judith Rice Henderson, Rhetorica

    "...splendid book that offers both a compelling method of close reading and a number of careful, discriminating analyses of Renaissance English texts." Joutnal of English and Germanic Philology

    Refine List

    Actions for selected content:

    Select all | Deselect all
    • View selected items
    • Export citations
    • Download PDF (zip)
    • Save to Kindle
    • Save to Dropbox
    • Save to Google Drive

    Save Search

    You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

    Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
    ×

    Contents

    Metrics

    Altmetric attention score

    Full text views

    Total number of HTML views: 0
    Total number of PDF views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    Book summary page views

    Total views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    * Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

    Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

    Accessibility standard: Unknown

    Why this information is here

    This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

    Accessibility Information

    Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.