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
... player - poet's peculiar self- consciousness about his lowly social status . Despite the added sense of personal inadequacy and social taint that such self - consciousness about his profession brings to the poet's Petrarchan moments , as ...
... player - poet's peculiar self- consciousness about his lowly social status . Despite the added sense of personal inadequacy and social taint that such self - consciousness about his profession brings to the poet's Petrarchan moments , as ...
Page 5
... player - poet in his relation to a well - born addressee , are closely related . Can the modes and conditions of address indicated by the pre- ponderance of the second - person pronoun in Shakespeare's sonnets ( by comparison with ...
... player - poet in his relation to a well - born addressee , are closely related . Can the modes and conditions of address indicated by the pre- ponderance of the second - person pronoun in Shakespeare's sonnets ( by comparison with ...
Page 9
... poem as a whole is less concerned with a description of the beloved than in elaborating a series of mischievous reprimands , whereby the player - poet is able to project the beloved as the source of all beauty through speech acts that ...
... poem as a whole is less concerned with a description of the beloved than in elaborating a series of mischievous reprimands , whereby the player - poet is able to project the beloved as the source of all beauty through speech acts that ...
Page 12
... poet and aristocratic patron via such performative uses of language , by which the actor - poet seeks , sometimes in ... player - poet uses such performatives to negotiate a politics of self - authorisation . The illocutionary force of ...
... poet and aristocratic patron via such performative uses of language , by which the actor - poet seeks , sometimes in ... player - poet uses such performatives to negotiate a politics of self - authorisation . The illocutionary force of ...
Page 14
... poetry . Taken as a strictly phenomenological project , Vendler's reduction of the ' voice ' of the lyric by stripping ... player - poet cries , at the end of sonnet 23 , ' O learne to read what silent loue hath writ ' , he is indeed ...
... poetry . Taken as a strictly phenomenological project , Vendler's reduction of the ' voice ' of the lyric by stripping ... player - poet cries , at the end of sonnet 23 , ' O learne to read what silent loue hath writ ' , he is indeed ...
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