
Shakespeare and Greece
The Arden Shakespeare (Publisher)
Published on 26. July 2018
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-1-350-07996-0 (ISBN)
Description
This book seeks to invert Ben Jonson's claim that Shakespeare had 'small Latin and less Greek' and to prove that, in fact, there is more Greek and less Latin in a significant group of Shakespeare's texts: a group whose generic hybridity (tragic-comical-historical-romance) exemplifies the hybridity of Greece in the early modern imagination. To early modern England, Greece was an enigma. It was the origin and idealised pinnacle of Western philosophy, tragedy, democracy, heroic human endeavour and, at the same time, an example of decadence: a fallen state, currently under Ottoman control, and therefore an exotic, dangerous, 'Other' in the most disturbing senses of the word. Indeed, while Britain was struggling to establish itself as a nation state and an imperial authority by emulating classical Greek models, this ambition was radically unsettled by early modern Greece's subjection to the Ottoman Empire, which rendered Europe's eastern borders dramatically vulnerable. Focusing, for the first time, on Shakespeare's 'Greek' texts (Venus and Adonis, The Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Love's Labour's Lost, Troilus and Cressida, Timon of Athens, King Lear, Pericles and The Two Noble Kinsmen), the volume considers how Shakespeare's use of antiquity and Greek myth intersects with early modern perceptions of the country and its empire.
Reviews / Votes
A fascinating collection that brilliantly teases out the tension between the order and authority of a classical Greece and the very different status and nature of a Greece under Ottoman rule. * Times Higher Education * Shakespeare and Greece, a collection of essays edited by Alison Findlay and Vassiliki Markidou, contributes to a small but growing body of work addressing an important and understudied topic. Framed by an introduction situating the project in Shakespeare's literary and cultural landscape, the book's eight essays explore different intersections between Shakespeare and the Greek world. Their premises and methodologies vary, but together they make a strong case for the pervasiveness and importance of Shakespeare's Greek engagements ... This volume illuminates a rich topic, and opens inviting directions for further study. * Renaissance Quarterly *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
Weight
304 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-350-07996-0 (9781350079960)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Alison Findlay | Vassiliki Markidou | Alison Findlay
Shakespeare and Greece
E-Book
01/2017
1st Edition
The Arden Shakespeare
€39.99
Available for download

Alison Findlay | Vassiliki Markidou | Alison Findlay
Shakespeare and Greece
E-Book
01/2017
1st Edition
The Arden Shakespeare
€39.99
Available for download
Persons
Alison Findlay is Professor of Renaissance Drama and Director of the Shakespeare Programme at Lancaster University, UK and Vassiliki Markidou is an Assistant Professor in English Literature and Culture at the Faculty of English Language and Literature, University of Athens, Greece.
Editor
Lancaster University, UK
University of Athens, Greece
Volume editor
Lancaster University, UK
University of Athens, Greece
Content
Introduction, Alison Findlay and Vassiliki Markidou
1. The Comedy of Errors and 'farthest Greece', Kent Cartwright
2. Embodying Greece in Elizabethan England: Venus and Adonis and Love's Labour's Lost, Liz Oakley-Brown
3. Greece 'digested in a play': Consuming Greek Heroism in The School of Abuse and Troilus and Cressida, Efterpi Mitsi
4. 'All's with me meet that I can fashion fit': Physis and Nomos in King Lear, Nic Panagopoulo
5. Hospitality, Friendship and Republicanism in Timon of Athens, John Drakakis
6. 'To take our imagination / From bourn to bourn, region to region': The Politics of Greek Topographies in Pericles, Vassiliki Markidou
7. Reshaping Athens in A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Two Noble Kinsmen, Alison Findlay
8. A Midsummer Night's Dream in Modern Athens, Mara Yanni
Selected Bibliography
1. The Comedy of Errors and 'farthest Greece', Kent Cartwright
2. Embodying Greece in Elizabethan England: Venus and Adonis and Love's Labour's Lost, Liz Oakley-Brown
3. Greece 'digested in a play': Consuming Greek Heroism in The School of Abuse and Troilus and Cressida, Efterpi Mitsi
4. 'All's with me meet that I can fashion fit': Physis and Nomos in King Lear, Nic Panagopoulo
5. Hospitality, Friendship and Republicanism in Timon of Athens, John Drakakis
6. 'To take our imagination / From bourn to bourn, region to region': The Politics of Greek Topographies in Pericles, Vassiliki Markidou
7. Reshaping Athens in A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Two Noble Kinsmen, Alison Findlay
8. A Midsummer Night's Dream in Modern Athens, Mara Yanni
Selected Bibliography