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.
Authors
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references (p. [187]-192) and index
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 822.3/3
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 21
- General Note
- Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- ISBN
- 0802087787 9781442679689
- LCCN
- PR3014
- LCCN Item number
- C64 2003eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaOONL
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (xv, 195 p.)
- Published in
- Canada
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)thg00600971 (OCoLC)666901004 (CaOOCEL)418466
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Transcribing agency
- CaOONL
Table of Contents
- Contents 8
- Acknowledgments 10
- Introduction 12
- PART I 18
- 1 Tragedy and the Nation: Othello 20
- 2 History and the Nation: The Second Tetralogy 36
- 3 Slave Voices: Caliban and Ariel 58
- 4 The Scapegoat Mechanism: Shylock and Caliban 78
- PART II 100
- 5 The Self-Representations of Othello 102
- 6 King Lear and Memory 120
- 7 The Past of Macbeth 140
- PART III 156
- 8 Messengers of Death: The Figure of the Hit Man 158
- 9 'noseless, handless, hack'd and chipp'd': Broken Human Bodies 176
- Notes 196
- Works Cited 204
- Index 210
- A 210
- B 210
- C 210
- D 210
- E 210
- F 210
- G 210
- H 211
- I 211
- J 211
- K 211
- L 211
- M 211
- N 211
- O 211
- P 211
- Q 211
- R 211
- S 211
- T 212
- V 212
- W 212
- Y 212
