Making Trifles of Terrors: Redistributing Complicities in ShakespeareThis collection of essays includes some of the most recent work of a master critic at the height of his powers. Of the fourteen essays, written from the late 1970's to the present, three have never before been published; the essays' appearance in a single volume makes available for the first time the full scope of Berger's unique approach to ethical discourses in Shakespeare's plays. The sequence of essays displays both the continuity and the revisionary development that mark his critical practice since the early work on The Tempest, Troilus and Cressida, and the Elizabethan theater. When one compares Berger's earlier work from the 1960's with the writing from the 1980's and 1990's in the present collection, one sees that the difference stems primarily from the impact on the later work of his encounters with the whole range of structuralist and poststructuralist theory. Much of the excitement and vitality of Berger's current work comes from his efforts to incorporate new methodological influences into his previous system. Because he comes to poststructuralism as a mature critic whose larger interpretive framework is already in place, his response is not simply to immerse himself in the new theoretical modes and adopt them wholesale, but rather to make them his own. Among the plays discussed are The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, King Lear, Macbeth, 2 Henry IV, Richard II--and, in two of the new essays, 1 Henry IV and Measure for Measure. Also new is Berger's retrospective account of his critical development in the extensive opening "Acknowledgments." |
From inside the book
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Page viii
... Gaunt and the Practice of Strategic Dying II . What Did the King Know and When Did He Know It ? Shakespearean Discourses and Psychoanalysis 12. Food for Words : Hotspur and the Discourse of Honor 168 189 211 251 13. Making Trifles of ...
... Gaunt and the Practice of Strategic Dying II . What Did the King Know and When Did He Know It ? Shakespearean Discourses and Psychoanalysis 12. Food for Words : Hotspur and the Discourse of Honor 168 189 211 251 13. Making Trifles of ...
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Contents
The Lear Family Romance | 25 |
The Gloucester | 50 |
The Example of Macbeth | 98 |
Sneaks Noise or Rumor and Detextualization | 126 |
The First | 148 |
Theater in Richard II | 168 |
Ars Moriendi in Progress or John of Gaunt and | 189 |
What Did the King Know and When Did He Know | 211 |
Hotspur and the Discourse of Honor | 251 |
Redistributing Complicities | 288 |
What Does the Duke Know and When Does He Know | 335 |
Notes | 429 |
Credits | 475 |
Other editions - View all
Making Trifles of Terrors: Redistributing Complicities in Shakespeare Harry Berger No preview available - 1997 |
Common terms and phrases
acknowledge Angelo audience Banquo Bassanio behavior Berger's betrays Bolingbroke characters Claudio complicity conflict conspicuous Coppélia Cordelia critical darker purpose death desire detextualization displacement dramatic Duke Duke's Duncan Edgar Edmund effect Escalus essay ethical expressed Falstaff father fear feel Friar Gaunt give Gloucester Gloucester's guilt Harry Harry's hath hear Henriad Henry Hero honor Hotspur interpretation irony Isabella John of Gaunt King Lear language language-games Lear's lines Louis Montrose Lucio Macbeth means Measure for Measure metatheatrical moral moriendi motives pardon performance phrase play play's political Pompey Prince punishment question reading reference relation represent response revenge rhetoric Richard Richard II ritual role Rumor scenario scene seems self-representation sense sexual Shakespeare shame sinner's discourse sinning soliloquy speak speaker speech speech acts stage Stanley Cavell Stephen Greenblatt strategy structure suggests tells textual theater theatrical thee thou tion University Press utterance victim words