Description
Book SynopsisThis text offers a systematic account of the theology behind Shakespeare's poetry. Investigating the poetic stakes of Christianity's efforts to assimilate Jewish scripture, the book reads Shakespeare through the history of Christian allegory.
Trade ReviewFreinkel brilliantly reorganizes our understanding of "modern" subjectivity as expressed in Shakespeare's supposedly Petrarchan poetry... what this book accomplishes is a major shift in out understanding of Renaissance lyric. Studies in English Literature Engaging, provocative, impressively learned, and heavily annotated... [Lisa Freinkel's] book does much relocate Shakespeare in relation to a theological tradition extending from St. Paul to Luther. Shakespeare Bulletin By dislodging our ways of thinking about conventions of allegory and our status as readers generally,Reading Shakespeare's Will does the field of Renaissance studies a tremendous service. We will be reading-and discussing-Freinkel's book for a long time. -- Christopher Martin Sixteenth Century Journal Freinkel's style is artful and original, her research is comprehensive, and her assertions are intriguing... her detailed observations and commentary read and reread Shakespeare's figurative language from multiple perspectives, which illustrate her postmodern celebration of the undying ambiguity of figural interpretation. -- Gayle Gaskill Renaissance Quarterly The writing is always dramatic and the argument presented with an eagerness. -- John Roe MLR
Table of ContentsPreface Bibliography 1. Augustine Under the Fig Tree 2. Petrarch in the Shade of the Laurel 3. Luther Disfiguring the Word 4. Willful Abuse: The Canker and the Rose 5. Will's Bondage: Anti-Semitism and "The Merchant of Venice"
