
Late Shakespeare
A New World of Words
Simon Palfrey(Author)
Oxford University Press
Published on 6. January 2000
Book
Paperback/Softback
310 pages
978-0-19-818689-2 (ISBN)
Description
Shakespeare's late plays are usually seen in terms of courtliness and escapism. But the critical tradition has been too decorous. Neither neo-Christian pieties nor high-political allegory can account for the works' audacity and surprise, or the popular investment in both their form and meaning. Post-structuralist and historicist approaches show the indeterminacy and materiality of language, but rarely identify how particular figures (words and characters) capture and energize contested history. Recent criticism tends to put a pre-emptive 'master-paradigm' above all else; a more sinuous, minutely attentive critical vocabulary is needed to apprehend Shakespeare's turbulent, precise, teeming metaphorical discourse.
Reviews / Votes
A dazzling and dizzying study. Palfrey's earthy-and -yet-heady style - both entertaining and provocative. * Journal of English and Germanic Philology *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
442 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-818689-2 (9780198186892)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Book
08/1997
Clarendon Press
€109.50
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Simon Palfrey is a Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford University. His books include Late Shakespeare: A New World of Words (Oxford, 1997); Shakespeare in Parts (Oxford, 2007), written with Tiffany Stern and awarded the Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society's David Bevington Prize for best new book; Romeo and Juliet (Short Books, 2011); and the novel Dunsinane, written with Ewan Fernie. He is the founding editor (with Fernie) of Continuum's innovative series of 'minigraphs', Shakespeare Now! His new work includes a book on possible worlds in early modern drama and philosophy, and a play inspired by Spenser's Faerie Queen. His book Doing Shakespeare was published by Arden Shakespeare in 2005, reissued 2011.
Content
Introduction ; Romance, Irony and Humanism ; Pericles and the Idea of the Hero ; Body Language at Court ; Country Matters ; Magnetic Island and Islander in The Tempest ; Violence and Freedom ; Women and Romance ; Endings ; Bibliography ; Index