Description

Book Synopsis

The precise relation between the spectator and the work of art was a matter of great interest to late Renaissance and baroque artists, playwrights as well as painters. In Shakespeare's plays the relation between audience and stage life is crucial. The plays constantly remind the audience of the complex fictiveness of their experience yet they also project a reality specifically through illusion. Indirections is a study of twelve plays in which Shakespeare sets up situations and relationships between the characters analogous to the relationship established between audience and play.

This book examines the varied uses of illusion, deceit, disguise, and manipulation in the plays, both comedies and tragedies, and traces Shakespeare's use of illusion through his career — from the buoyant optimism of the great comedies and the ambiguity of the middle years to the new richness and power in the romances.

Dawson suggests that the way characters respond to illusory

Indirections

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    A Paperback / softback by Anthony B Dawson

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      Book details

      Publisher University of Toronto Press
      Published 15 December 1978
      ISBN-13 9781442639775
      978-1442639775
      ISBN-10 1442639776

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      The precise relation between the spectator and the work of art was a matter of great interest to late Renaissance and baroque artists, playwrights as well as painters. In Shakespeare's plays the relation between audience and stage life is crucial. The plays constantly remind the audience of the complex fictiveness of their experience yet they also project a reality specifically through illusion. Indirections is a study of twelve plays in which Shakespeare sets up situations and relationships between the characters analogous to the relationship established between audience and play.

      This book examines the varied uses of illusion, deceit, disguise, and manipulation in the plays, both comedies and tragedies, and traces Shakespeare's use of illusion through his career — from the buoyant optimism of the great comedies and the ambiguity of the middle years to the new richness and power in the romances.

      Dawson suggests that the way characters respond to illusory

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