Issues of Death: Mortality and Identity in English Renaissance Tragedy

ISBN-13: 9780198184935 / Angielski / Miękka / 1999 / 424 str.

Michael Neill

Opis

Issues of Death offers a fresh approach to the tragic drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Starting from the premise that "death" is a historical construct that is differently experienced in every culture, it treats Renaissance tragedy as an instrument for reimagining the human encounter with death. Analyses of major plays by Marlowe, Kyd, Shakespeare, Webster, Middleton, and Ford explore the relation of tragedy to the macabre tradition, to the apocalyptic displays of the anatomy theatre, and to the spectacular arts of funeral.

Recenzje

The position may be familiar, but it is important, and Neill's version of it is richly illustrated ... The book forcefully revives the old thesis about the role of the plague, not just in the danse macabre motif but in the mortality crisis of this era as a whole ... a substantive and graceful piece of literary and cultural criticism, wise and learned, well argued and well written, generously and helpfully documented, perceptive about the dominant patterms of some major Renaissance dramatic texts, and informative about their social contexts.