Description
Book SynopsisThe idea that the world is a theatre in which each individual human being plays out the part assigned to him by God, who is both the playwright and the producer of the drama of life, was one of the great commonplaces of the Renaissance and one to which Shakespeare alluded frequently.
Shakespeare’s plays, however, transformed this familiar notion from a cliché to a fertile source of invention. In the past two decades, and especially since the publication of Anne Righter’s Shakespeare and the Idea of the Play in 1962, the idea has received considerable critical attention. This new work supplements and extends recent studies by examining in detail the function of the histrionic metaphors, both verbal and other, in Shakespeare’s plays.
In Role-playing in Shakespeare, Professor Van Laan argues that the theatrical allusions, disguises, impersonations, and conscious or unconscious self-misrepresentations which abound in these plays exemplify a basic concern
