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 1
... historical conditions under which the texts were produced ? These questions provide a framework for the analysis of Shakespeare's sonnets in this book , which takes as the central condition of the sonnets the fact that their author was ...
... historical conditions under which the texts were produced ? These questions provide a framework for the analysis of Shakespeare's sonnets in this book , which takes as the central condition of the sonnets the fact that their author was ...
Page 5
... historical embodi- ment of sonnets in theatrical representations ? C. L. Barber's suggestion that in Shakespeare's sonnets ' poetry is , in a special way , an action , something done for and to the beloved'11 brings the poems closest to ...
... historical embodi- ment of sonnets in theatrical representations ? C. L. Barber's suggestion that in Shakespeare's sonnets ' poetry is , in a special way , an action , something done for and to the beloved'11 brings the poems closest to ...
Page 13
... historical debate about whether Elizabethans had access to a concept of interiority at all . I deal with these issues more fully in chapter 3 . For the moment , I remark on the tendency to strip from Shakespeare's sonnets their ...
... historical debate about whether Elizabethans had access to a concept of interiority at all . I deal with these issues more fully in chapter 3 . For the moment , I remark on the tendency to strip from Shakespeare's sonnets their ...
Page 14
... historical argument to locate and justify such ' normativity ' . I suspect that , given such historical consideration , Shakespeare's sonnets may turn out not to be lyrics in Vendler's sense at all . Or rather , their attempts to move ...
... historical argument to locate and justify such ' normativity ' . I suspect that , given such historical consideration , Shakespeare's sonnets may turn out not to be lyrics in Vendler's sense at all . Or rather , their attempts to move ...
Page 15
... historical ' discourses ' which are then projected into the text regard- less of their particular uses in the text . 26 If Wittgenstein is right that the meanings of words lies in their use , then this poetics , which maintains a ...
... historical ' discourses ' which are then projected into the text regard- less of their particular uses in the text . 26 If Wittgenstein is right that the meanings of words lies in their use , then this poetics , which maintains a ...
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