Shakespeare's Foreign Queens: Drama, Politics, and the Enemy Within

ISBN-13: 9781137534835 / Angielski / Twarda / 2018 / 279 str.

Sandra Logan

Opis

This book examines Shakespeare's depiction of foreign queens as he uses them to reveal and embody tensions within early modern English politics.

Recenzje

"Scholars interested in theories of sovereignty and tyranny, foreignness, and the intersections of gender and power as they emerge in Shakespeare will find fruitful avenues in this complex and challenging book." (Kat Lecky, Early Modern Woman, EMWJ, Vol. 15 (2), 2021)
"This book is true to its title, providing a detailed analytical study of four Shakespearian foreign queens. ... The practical structure of the book also lends itself well to being read as an anthology. Each chapter contains a brief introduction to its subject, has distinct notes and its own bibliography." (Alexandra Claridge, Royal Studies Journal, Vol. 6 (1), 2019)

Spis treści

1. Introduction: Foreign Queens, Abusive Sovereignty, and Political Authority in the Past and the Present

2.Katherine of Aragon's Fragmented Identity in Henry VIII

3. The Friend, the Enemy, the Wife, and the Guest: Conditional and Unconditional Hospitality in The Winter's Tale

4. Strange Bedfellows: Friend, Enemy, and the Commonweal in Titus Andronicus

5. Margaret and the Ban: Resistances to Sovereign Authority in Henry VI 1, 2, & 3 and Richard III

O autorze

Sandra Logan is Associate Professor of Early Modern Literature and Culture in the Department of English at Michigan State University, USA, and Director of the Citizen Scholars Program for the MSU College of Arts and Letters.

Blurb

This book examines Shakespeare’s depiction of foreign queens as he uses them to reveal and embody tensions within early modern English politics. Linking early modern and contemporary political theory and concerns through the concepts of fragmented identity, hospitality, citizenship, and banishment, Sandra Logan takes up a set of questions not widely addressed by scholars of early modern queenship. How does Shakespeare’s representation of these queens challenge the opposition between friend and enemy that ostensibly defines the context of the political? And how do these queens expose the abusive potential of the sovereign? Focusing on Katherine of Aragon in Henry VIII, Hermione in The Winter’s Tale, Tamora in Titus Andronicus, and Margaret in the first history tetralogy, Logan considers them as means for exploring conditions of vulnerability, alienation, and exclusion common to subjects of every social position, exposing the sovereign himself as the true enemy of the state.