Shakespeare's Tragedies
Shakespeare's Tragedies
Looking for an examination copy?
This title is not currently available for examination. However, if you are interested in the title for your course we can consider offering an examination copy. To register your interest please contact collegesales@cambridge.org providing details of the course you are teaching.
Shakespeare's Tragedies: Violation and Identity traces the linked themes of violation and identity through seven Shakespearean tragedies, beginning with the rape of Lavinia in Titus Andronicus. The implications of this event - its physical and moral shock, the way it puts Lavinia's identity, and the whole notion of identity, into crisis - reverberate through Shakespeare's later tragedies. Through close, theatrically informed readings of Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth the book traces the way acts of violence provoke questions about the identities of the victims, the perpetrators, and the acts themselves. It shows that violation can be involved in the most innocent-looking acts, that words can be weapons, that interpretation itself can be a form of damage. Written in a clear, accessible style, this study provokes questions about the human implications of Shakespearean tragedy.
- Gives a close reading of seven individual Shakespeare plays, focussing on the text itself
- Written in a clear, accessible style
- Draws on contemporary critical approaches
Reviews & endorsements
"Leggatt has produced an intriguing, beautifully-written book that traces a number of fascinating patterns throughout many, not all, of Shakespeare's tragedies."
Linda Anderson, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Renaissance Quarterly
"Throughout the book, Leggatt consistently does Shakespeare's text the honor of close reading and careful attention to the staging. As with the tragedies themselves, there can be no easy closure to the difficult themes raised by the book. Which is as it should be." - Anthony Low, New York University Emeritus
Product details
June 2005Paperback
9780521608633
240 pages
230 × 150 × 15 mm
0.383kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- 1. Titus Andronicus: This was thy daughter
- 2. Romeo and Juliet: what's in a name? 3. Hamlet: a figure like your father
- 4. Troilus and Cressida: this is and is not Cressid
- 5. Othello: I took you for that cunning whore of Venice
- 6. King Lear: we have no such daughter
- 7. Macbeth: a deed without a name
- Conclusion.
