"Resolution and the Briefest End" Suicide in Shakespeare's Tragedies

Author: Ra'ed AL-Qassas

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2011-04-05

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781453896549

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Suicide is fundamental when it comes to characters reaching a state of immortality in Shakespeare's tragedies, and in Resolution and the Briefest End: Suicide in Shakespeare's Tragedies, Ra'ed AL-Qassas studies this theory in great detail. Dedicated to sparking a renewed interest in these plays, and resuscitating a particular tragedy that has been neglected for many years, namely Timon of Athens, he focuses on the psychology of the Shakespearean hero, which brings into play a modern appreciation of the Bard's works. Imprisoned behind university walls, Christopher Marlowe's works have consequently faded away, while Shakespeare's plays are very much alive because of their suicidal content, a component that has always intrigued and fascinated audiences throughout the ages. What makes this book such an interesting read is that the author has detected three patterns of suicide in Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Timon of Athens, Othello, and Julius Caesar, which he classifies as nihilistic, emotional, and redemptive. This thought provoking study presents a new and highly original way of looking at Shakespeare's tragedies. Unique, informative, and worthy of note, this book is both educational and a great pleasure to read.

Shakespeare’s Suicides
Shakespeare’s Suicides

Author: Marlena Tronicke

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-11-22

Total Pages: 357

ISBN-13: 1351213172

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Shakespeare’s Suicides: Dead Bodies That Matter is the first study in Shakespeare criticism to examine the entirety of Shakespeare’s dramatic suicides. It addresses all plays featuring suicides and near-suicides in chronological order from Titus Andronicus to Antony and Cleopatra, thus establishing that suicide becomes increasingly pronounced as a vital means of dramatic characterisation. In particular, the book approaches suicide as a gendered phenomenon. By taking into account parameters such as onstage versus offstage deaths, suicide speeches or the explicit denial of final words, as well as settings and weapons, the study scrutinises the ways in which Shakespeare appropriates the convention of suicide and subverts traditional notions of masculine versus feminine deaths. It shows to what extent a gendered approach towards suicide opens up a more nuanced understanding of the correlation between gender and Shakespeare’s genres and how, eventually, through their dramatisation of suicide the tragedies query normative gender discourse.

The Heroic Idiom of Shakespearean Tragedy
The Heroic Idiom of Shakespearean Tragedy

Author: James C. Bulman

Publisher: University of Delaware Press

Published: 1985

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9780874132717

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Shakespeare's idiom is an aggregate of archaic modes of speech and codes of conduct. This book attempts to make that idiom more accessible and, in the process, to illuminate the significance of heroic concepts to a study of Shakespeare's tragedies and histories.

Shakespeare's Tragic Sequence
Shakespeare's Tragic Sequence

Author: Kenneth Muir

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-11

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1136568603

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First published in 1972. The emphasis of this book is that each of Shakespeare's tragedies demanded its own individual form and that although certain themes run through most of the tragedies, nearly all critics refrain from the attempt to apply external rules to them. The plays are almost always concerned with one person; they end with the death of the hero; the suffering and calamity that befall him are exceptional; and the tragedies include the medieval idea of the reversal of fortune.

The Sources of Shakespeare's Plays
The Sources of Shakespeare's Plays

Author: Kenneth Muir

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-04-04

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 1317833414

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First published in 1977. This book ascertains what sources Shakespeare used for the plots of his plays and discusses the use he made of them; and secondly illustrates how his general reading is woven into the texture of his work. Few Elizabethan dramatists took such pains as Shakespeare in the collection of source-material. Frequently the sources were apparently incompatible, but Shakespeare's ability to combine a chronicle play, one or two prose chronicles, two poems and a pastoral romance without any sense of incongruity, was masterly. The plays are examined in approximately chronological order and Shakespeare's developing skill becomes evident.

Once More Unto the Speech, Dear Friends: The tragedies
Once More Unto the Speech, Dear Friends: The tragedies

Author: William Shakespeare

Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 450

ISBN-13: 9781557836571

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(Applause Books). There has been a great change in the last twenty years to actor auditions, which now require the demonstration of enormous flexibility. The actor is often expected to show more range than ever before, and often several shorter audition speeches are asked for instead of one or two longer ones. To stay at the top of his or her game, the Shakespearean actor needs more knowledge of what makes the play tick, especially since the early plays demand a different style from the later ones. Each genre (comedy, history, tragedy) has different requirements. No current monologue book deals directly with the bulk of these concerns. One More unto the Speech, Dear Friends now fills that gap. This three volume set will help actors discover the extra details of humanity that the original folio texts automatically offer. Of Shakespeare's 37 plays, only Pericles is not included. In the trilogy of books there are over 900 separate audition possibilities. This represents about 600 more monologues than are available in any other series. There are four parts to each speech: * A background giving context and approximate timing; * A modern text version; * The original folio version; * Commentary to explain the differences between the two texts including full discussion of the devices peculiar to that speech's genre, the age and gender of the character, and more.

Passion, Prudence, and Virtue in Shakespearean Drama
Passion, Prudence, and Virtue in Shakespearean Drama

Author: Unhae Park Langis

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2011-05-26

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1441187456

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Virtue, as a Renaissance ideal, was largely conceived as a rational governing of unruly passions. Revising this early modern commonplace, this study shows how Shakespeare dramatizes a discerning Aristotelian conception of virtue as a touchstone of excellence: executing just action at the best time, in the best way, and for the best end within the contingent world. Not only situational, Aristotelian virtue is, moreover, integrative, harmonizing passion and reason, will and understanding, towards personal and civil good. Yet as a surprising backfire on the misogynist streak in Aristotle, the resistant female characters in Shakespeare emerge as the exemplars of ethical action, appropriating traditionally male-inflected virtue. At the junction of ethical, psycho-physiological, cultural and gender studies, this approach of prudential psychology bridges an apparent but needless divergence of critical focus between affect and cognition, ethics and prudential action. Firmly situated in new historicist practices, prudential psychology goes beyond narrow discourses of power into the all-encompassing arena of virtue as the complete life, which recommends an interdisciplinary approach for a fuller understanding of Shakespeare's works.

Service and Dependency in Shakespeare's Plays
Service and Dependency in Shakespeare's Plays

Author: Judith Weil

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2005-06-09

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 1139444573

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This is an unusual study of the nature of service and other types of dependency and patronage in Shakespeare's drama. By considering the close associations of service with childhood or youth, marriage and friendship, Judith Weil sheds light on social practice and dramatic action. Approached as dynamic explorations of a familiar custom, the plays are shown to demonstrate a surprising consciousness of obligations, and a fascination with how dependants actively change each other. They help us understand why early modern people may have found service both frightening and enabling. Attentive to a range of historical sources, and social and cultural issues, Weil also emphasises the linguistic ambiguities created by service relationships, and their rich potential for interpretation on the stage. The book includes close readings of dramatic sequences in twelve plays, including Hamlet, Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew and King Lear.