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.
ReviewsA dazzling and dizzying study. Palfrey's earthy-and -yet-heady style - both entertaining and provocative. * Journal of English and Germanic Philology *
Book InformationISBN 9780198186892
Author Simon PalfreyFormat Paperback
Page Count 310
Imprint Oxford University PressPublisher Oxford University Press
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 139mm * 19mm