Shakespeare's Curse: The Aporias of Ritual Exclusion in Early Modern Royal Drama

ISBN-13: 9780415517560 / Angielski / Twarda / 2013 / 280 str.

Bjoern Quiring

Opis

Conceptualizing the curse as the representation of a foundational, mythical violence that is embedded within juridical discourse, Shakespeare's Curse pursues a reading of Richard III, King John and King Lear in order to analyze its persistence in the discourses of modernity. Shakespeare wrote during a period that was transformative in the development of legal thinking. But, taking up the relationship between theatre, theology and law, Bjoern Quiring argues that constitutional and contractarian legal thinking did not replace, but reinforced and reinvigorated Christian ideas about the curse and the oath.

Spis treści

Acknowledgements  Introduction  1. Richard III and the Ostracized Heritage of Theater  1.1 Anne and the Supplement of the Eucharist  1.2 Margaret and the Excommunication of the Old Liturgy  1.3 Edward IV, the Oath and the Performance of the Social Contract  1.4 Hastings and the Fateful Prophecy  1.5 Henry VI and the Standing Army of the Dead  1.6 Clarence and the Diabolical Allegory  1.7 Buckingham and the Grounds of Theater  2. King John and the Ordeal of the Bastard Commodity  3. King Lear and the Naturalized State of Exception  3.1 Cordelia and the Problem of Equity  3.2 Goneril and Regan within the Liberties of Nature  3.3 Kent in Internal Banishment  3.4 Edgar and the benedictio vacui  3.5 The Fool and the Bonds of Fate  3.6 Storm still and the Perpetual Downfall of the Last Judgment

O autorze

Björn Quiring is Research Associate at the Peter Szondi Institute of Comparative Literature, Freie Universitat, Berlin.