Speech and Performance in Shakespeare's Sonnets and PlaysDavid Schalkwyk offers a sustained reading of Shakespeare's sonnets in relation to his plays. He argues that the language of the sonnets is primarily performative rather than descriptive, and bases this distinction on the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein and J. L. Austin. In a wide-ranging analysis of both the 1609 Quarto of Shakespeare's sonnets and the Petrarchan discourses in a selection of plays, Schalkwyk addresses such issues as embodiment and silencing, interiority and theatricality, inequalities of power, status, gender and desire, both in the published poems and on the stage and in the context of the early modern period. In a provocative discussion of the question of proper names and naming events in the sonnets and plays, the book seeks to reopen the question of the autobiographical nature of Shakespeare's sonnets. |
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Page i
... quarto of Shakespeare's sonnets and the Petrarchan discourses in a selec- tion of plays , Schalkwyk addresses such issues as embodiment and silencing , interiority and theatricality , inequalities of power , status , gender and desire ...
... quarto of Shakespeare's sonnets and the Petrarchan discourses in a selec- tion of plays , Schalkwyk addresses such issues as embodiment and silencing , interiority and theatricality , inequalities of power , status , gender and desire ...
Page ix
... Quarto reproduced in Shakespeare's Sonnets , ed . Stephen Booth ( New Haven , CT and London : Yale University Press , 1978 ) . Quotations from the plays are from The Oxford Shakespeare , ed . Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor ( Oxford ...
... Quarto reproduced in Shakespeare's Sonnets , ed . Stephen Booth ( New Haven , CT and London : Yale University Press , 1978 ) . Quotations from the plays are from The Oxford Shakespeare , ed . Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor ( Oxford ...
Page 3
... Quarto . The sonnets as ' embodied texts ' are thus closely imbricated , in both sociological and aesthetic terms , with their poet's work in the newly commodified space of the theatre . The notion of an embodied text has recently been ...
... Quarto . The sonnets as ' embodied texts ' are thus closely imbricated , in both sociological and aesthetic terms , with their poet's work in the newly commodified space of the theatre . The notion of an embodied text has recently been ...
Page 4
... Quarto is the only major body of sonnets in early Modern England writ- ten by a dramatist , and exploring the interaction of the sonnet and the theatre on a variety of sociological and aesthetic levels.9 To take into account the fact ...
... Quarto is the only major body of sonnets in early Modern England writ- ten by a dramatist , and exploring the interaction of the sonnet and the theatre on a variety of sociological and aesthetic levels.9 To take into account the fact ...
Page 8
... Quarto is curiously reticent about indulging in the Petrarchan blazon , despite its repeated invocation of the image of the beloved . Apart from the counter - discursive sonnet 130 ( ' My mistres eyes are nothing like the sun ' ) — an ...
... Quarto is curiously reticent about indulging in the Petrarchan blazon , despite its repeated invocation of the image of the beloved . Apart from the counter - discursive sonnet 130 ( ' My mistres eyes are nothing like the sun ' ) — an ...
Contents
1 | |
the sonnets Antony and Cleopatra and As You Like It | 29 |
the sonnets Loves Labours Lost Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night | 59 |
the sonnets Hamlet and King Lear | 102 |
the sonnets Romeo and Juliet Troilus and Cressida and Othello | 150 |
the sonnets and Alls Well that Ends Well | 198 |
Conclusion | 238 |
Bibliography | 243 |
Index | 253 |
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Common terms and phrases
All's anti-theatrical Antony and Cleopatra argues argument audience beauty beloved beloved's Bertram Cambridge character claims concepts context criticism dark lady dark woman declaration Desdemona desire discourse doth early modern embodied enacts erotic Essays eyes fact fair fictional Fineman force Hamlet heart Helen historical Iago ideological illocutionary illocutionary acts interaction interiority inwardness King language games literary logical London loue Love's Labour's Lost lover lyric meaning merely metaphysical mutual Olivia Orsino Othello paradigm paradox performative perlocutionary Petrarchan play player player-poet poem poet poetic poetry political proper name Quarto reciprocity recognise relations relationship render representation rhetorical rigid designation Romeo and Juliet scene self-authorising sense sexual Shakespeare's sonnets silence sonnet 23 sonnet 44 speak speech acts stage theatre theatrical thee thing thou transform Troilus and Cressida truth Twelfth Night University Press Vendler Viola voice vows Wittgenstein women words young