Description

Book Synopsis

Tracing the changing speech patterns of confession and absolution in Shakespeare's work.



Trade Review

Sarah Beckwith's sensitive study starts from the Reformation’s subsuming of religion under politics, particularly in its abolition of the sacrament of penance.... Suggesting that, for early modern audiences, the theater replaced the Eucharist as a universally shared experience, she imagines a therapeutic effect in the present as well.

-- Lois Potter * Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 *

Beckwith presents a learned and penetrating study of the grammar of forgiveness in Shakespeare's late"post-tragic" (p. 2) plays: PericlesCymbelineThe Winter’s TaleThe Tempest.... With deep philosophical insights and a convincing mastery of historyBeckwith traces in the late Shakespeare the reinvention of a post-sacramental theatre." —Davide Crosara

* Memoria di Shakespeare. A Journal of Shakespearean Studies *

Table of Contents

Introduction: Promising, ForgivingPart One: Penance to Repentance
1. The Mind's Retreat from the Face
2. Rites of Forgiveness, Theater of ForgivenessPart Two: Promising
3. Repairs in the Dark: Measure for Measure and the End of ComedyPart Three: Forgiving
4. The Recovery of Voice in Pericles
5. Acknowledgment and Confession in Cymbeline
6. Shakespeare's Resurrections: The Winter’s Tale
7. Making Good in The TempestNotes
Bibliography
Index

Shakespeare and the Grammar of Forgiveness

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    A Paperback / softback by Sarah Beckwith

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      Book details

      Publisher Cornell University Press
      Published 11 December 2012
      ISBN-13 9780801478352
      978-0801478352
      ISBN-10 0801478359
      Also in:
      European history: Renaissance

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      Tracing the changing speech patterns of confession and absolution in Shakespeare's work.



      Trade Review

      Sarah Beckwith's sensitive study starts from the Reformation’s subsuming of religion under politics, particularly in its abolition of the sacrament of penance.... Suggesting that, for early modern audiences, the theater replaced the Eucharist as a universally shared experience, she imagines a therapeutic effect in the present as well.

      -- Lois Potter * Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 *

      Beckwith presents a learned and penetrating study of the grammar of forgiveness in Shakespeare's late"post-tragic" (p. 2) plays: PericlesCymbelineThe Winter’s TaleThe Tempest.... With deep philosophical insights and a convincing mastery of historyBeckwith traces in the late Shakespeare the reinvention of a post-sacramental theatre." —Davide Crosara

      * Memoria di Shakespeare. A Journal of Shakespearean Studies *

      Table of Contents

      Introduction: Promising, ForgivingPart One: Penance to Repentance
      1. The Mind's Retreat from the Face
      2. Rites of Forgiveness, Theater of ForgivenessPart Two: Promising
      3. Repairs in the Dark: Measure for Measure and the End of ComedyPart Three: Forgiving
      4. The Recovery of Voice in Pericles
      5. Acknowledgment and Confession in Cymbeline
      6. Shakespeare's Resurrections: The Winter’s Tale
      7. Making Good in The TempestNotes
      Bibliography
      Index

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