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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 93
Page 1
... poet's Petrarchan moments , as player- dramatist he is , nevertheless , able to bring to the poet's task an extraordi- narily developed sense of language as a performative force . By focusing on such performative dimensions I seek to ...
... poet's Petrarchan moments , as player- dramatist he is , nevertheless , able to bring to the poet's task an extraordi- narily developed sense of language as a performative force . By focusing on such performative dimensions I seek to ...
Page 3
... poet's work in the newly commodified space of the theatre . The notion of an embodied text has recently been used by Douglas Bruster to argue that the period during which the sonnets were written , and in which Shakespeare became ...
... poet's work in the newly commodified space of the theatre . The notion of an embodied text has recently been used by Douglas Bruster to argue that the period during which the sonnets were written , and in which Shakespeare became ...
Page 4
... poetic subjectivity ( Joel Fineman , Shakespeare's Perjured Eye : The Invention of Poetic Subjectivity in the Sonnets ( Berkeley , Los Angeles and London : University of California Press , 1986 ) ) ; their formal , essentially poetic ...
... poetic subjectivity ( Joel Fineman , Shakespeare's Perjured Eye : The Invention of Poetic Subjectivity in the Sonnets ( Berkeley , Los Angeles and London : University of California Press , 1986 ) ) ; their formal , essentially poetic ...
Page 5
... poetic ' persona ' , the poet of the sonnets is clearly a player - poet . He suffers from the social and personal vulnerability of some- one whose role as a poet is always informed by his position as actor and 10 See Melchiori ...
... poetic ' persona ' , the poet of the sonnets is clearly a player - poet . He suffers from the social and personal vulnerability of some- one whose role as a poet is always informed by his position as actor and 10 See Melchiori ...
Page 6
... poet of the age does not change the ways in which his poetry is informed by a sense of his own inferior social ... poet of the sonnets ' intense feeling of insecurity and vulnerability before a greater poet's verse : ' the rival poet's ...
... poet of the age does not change the ways in which his poetry is informed by a sense of his own inferior social ... poet of the sonnets ' intense feeling of insecurity and vulnerability before a greater poet's verse : ' the rival poet's ...
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