King Lear in our Time

King Lear in our Time PDF

Author: Maynard Mack

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-08

Total Pages: 139

ISBN-13: 1136563210

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This edition first published in 1966. Previous edition published 1965 by the University of California Press. Perhaps more than any other play of Shakespeare's King Lear has been subjected to almost totally contradictory interpretations. In the first historical section of the book the author describes the varying concepts of the play and the distortions of text and even plot that have been widely used. Garrick's playing of Lear as a pathetic and down-trodden old man. Laughton's and Olivier's versions and Herbert Blaus's theory of the 'subtext' are described and analysed. The central section of the book examines the medieval, folk and romance sources of the play. The final chapter illustrates how the action of the play and its pervading violence and evil are not explained in terms of human motive and rely for their meaning more on their effects than their antecedents. An important theme is the play's examination of society and the ties of service and family love.

The Grotesque

The Grotesque PDF

Author: Harold Bloom

Publisher: Infobase Publishing

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 0791098028

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Contains twenty critical essays that explore themes of the grotesque in various works, such as Voltaire's "Candide," Shelley's "Frankenstein," "Gogol's "The Overcoat," and Kafka's "The Metamorphosis."

Twentieth Century Interpretations of Twelfth Night

Twentieth Century Interpretations of Twelfth Night PDF

Author: Walter N. King

Publisher:

Published: 1968

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13:

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"Variously described by critics as a vindication of romance, a comedy of humors, and a 'poem of escape,' Twelfth Night may well be Shakespeare's crowing achievement among his early comedies. The essays in this book provide a wide-ranging perspective on its delightful but puzzling plot, its masks and conflicts, its relationship to other works in Shakespeare's canon, and the mood and tone of its marvelous language. Including articles by such scholars as Clifford Leech, John Hollander, C.L. Barber, and Joseph H. Summers, this volume offers a fresh appraisal of a play one critic has called 'the most delightful, harmonious and accomplished of Shakespeare's romantic comedies.'" -Publisher.

On King Lear, The Confessions, and Human Experience and Nature

On King Lear, The Confessions, and Human Experience and Nature PDF

Author: Kim Paffenroth

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-05-20

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1350203211

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Augustine's Confessions and Shakespeare's King Lear are two of the most influential and enduring works of the Western canon or world literature. But what does Stratford-upon-Avon have to do with Hippo, or the ascetical heretic-fighting polemicist with the author of some of the world's most beautiful love poetry? To answer these questions, Kim Paffenroth analyses the similarities and differences between the thinking of these two figures on the themes of love, language, nature and reason. Pairing and connecting the insights of Shakespeare's most nihilist tragedy with those of Augustine's most personal and sometimes self-condemnatory, sometimes triumphal work, challenges us to see their worldviews as more similar than they first seem, and as more relevant to our own fragmented and disillusioned world.