{"product_id":"shakespearean-tragedy-9781472586995","title":"Shakespearean Tragedy","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis ground-breaking book reveals the prophetic, revolutionary vision that drives Shakespeare's tragedies, tracing its unbroken development from its beginnings in the \u003ci\u003eHenry VI\u003c\/i\u003e plays and Shakespeare's first tragedy, \u003ci\u003eTitus Andronicus\u003c\/i\u003e, right through to his last, \u003ci\u003eCoriolanus\u003c\/i\u003e. The four full-length studies at the heart of the book focus in depth on Shakespeare's four greatest tragedies: \u003ci\u003eHamlet\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eOthello\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eKing Lear \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eMacbeth\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003ci\u003eShakespearean Tragedy\u003c\/i\u003e engages with each of these titanic masterpieces as a singular, complete work of dramatic art with its own distinctive concerns and critical challenges, but with the same unmistakably Shakespearean tragic vision at its core. Through compelling new readings of the plays, grounded in close analysis of their language and form, Kiernan Ryan shows how Shakespeare dramatizes the tragic realities of his world from the standpoint of the transfigured future that our world still awaits.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKiernan Ryan approaches Shakespearean tragedy like a visitor from the future, to reveal how these centuries-old plays still ‘dream on things to come’ through the politics of time. He shows how the lovers are crossed by stars dead for millennia; and why the light that breaks in their day is a dawn that hasn’t yet arrived. But we are the future Hamlet awaits, in Ryan’s time frame; Cordelia’s ‘smiles and tears’ are our cues for ‘a better way’. So, this is truly a world turned upside-down, where the hero counts the ‘hours, days, years’ before ‘desolation begins to make a better life’. In short, \u003ci\u003eShakespearean Tragedy\u003c\/i\u003e gives us a master-class in ‘the revolution of the times’. * Richard Wilson, Sir Peter Hall Professor of Shakespeare Studies, Kingston University, UK *\u003cbr\u003eKiernan Ryan has done more than anyone else to bring to light what he calls, in this splendid and beautifully written book, the “mutinous utopian logic” of Shakespeare’s drama—to show us that, as Shakespeare said, “Thought is free”, able to peer beyond a cabined, cribbed, confined present to an emancipated, more human, future. \u003ci\u003eShakespearean Tragedy\u003c\/i\u003e is not only a masterwork of subtle, scrupulous, attentive criticism, written in admirably straightforward prose, it is also a major contribution to a leftist politics characterized above all by universalism and solidarity. Here is Shakespeare criticism for the 99%! * Peter Holbrook, Professor of English Literature, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia *\u003cbr\u003eThis brilliantly written and consistently illuminating book presents a wholly original perspective on every one of Shakespeare’s tragedies, and makes a compelling case for their importance now. With a refreshing range of reference across the breadth of the critical tradition, not to mention the whole scope of theory and philosophy, it thrillingly opens our ears to Shakespeare as ‘the prophetic soul of the wide world’. Thanks to Ryan, the most famous characters in literature come close and confess that they are haunted by their own fulfilled selves in the transfigured future to which Shakespeare is ushering us, even as they fall prey to their times. * Ewan Fernie, Chair and Professor of Shakespeare Studies, Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, UK *\u003cbr\u003eRyan’s chapters on \u003ci\u003eTitus Andronicus\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eHamlet\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eKing Lear\u003c\/i\u003e, incomparable in their coverage, depth and reasonableness, should become obligatory reading for anyone interested in those plays … \u003ci\u003eShakespearean Tragedy\u003c\/i\u003e is of incalculable value. * Sederi Yearbook *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePreface\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cb\u003ePART I\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003e1 The Birth of Shakespearean Tragedy: \u003ci\u003e2\u003c\/i\u003e \u0026amp; \u003ci\u003e3 Henry VI\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e The Quondam King The Wild Morisco The Upstart Crow The Devil’s Butcher \u003cb\u003ePART II\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003e2 \u003ci\u003eTitus Andronicus\u003c\/i\u003e: A Sympathy of Woe \u003c\/b\u003e Prototypes and Precursors A Wilderness of Tigers This Fearful Slumber \u003cb\u003e3 \u003ci\u003eRomeo and Juliet\u003c\/i\u003e: Kissing by the Book \u003c\/b\u003e Strange Love Grown Bold The Prison-House of Language Empowering the Audience \u003cb\u003e4 \u003ci\u003eJulius Caesar\u003c\/i\u003e: The Common Good \u003c\/b\u003e An Icy Anatomy Scorning the Base Degrees The Foremost Man of All the World \u003cb\u003ePART III\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003e5 \u003ci\u003eHamlet\u003c\/i\u003e: A Kind of Fighting \u003c\/b\u003e The Stamp of One Defect Seeing Doubles That Within Which Passes Show Things Rank and Gross in Nature The Whips and Scorns of Time The Strong Confluence of Contending Forces A King of Infinite Space The Prophetic Soul of the Wide World \u003cb\u003e6 \u003ci\u003eOthello\u003c\/i\u003e: Thereby Hangs a Tail \u003c\/b\u003e Expectation in Preference to Surprise Sinking Below Shakespeare True Colours The Green-Eyed Monster Who Hath Done This Deed? The Tragedy of the Handkerchief If Wives Do Fall Motiveless Malignity and the Curse of Service What You Know, You Know A Pageant to Keep Us in False Gaze \u003cb\u003e7 \u003ci\u003eKing Lear\u003c\/i\u003e: Shakespeare’s Leviathan \u003c\/b\u003e A Play Fit for a King Echoes and Anticipations (i) Echoes and Anticipations (ii) A Better Where to Find The Whoreson and the Plague of Custom The Fool and the King The Art of Known and Feeling Sorrows The King and the Beggar So Distribution Should Undo Excess A Whole Dead World Galloping Over the Living Earth \u003cb\u003e8 \u003ci\u003eMacbeth\u003c\/i\u003e: The Habit of Another Nature \u003c\/b\u003e Embracing the Butcher Supernatural Soliciting Terrestrial Tragedy The Language of Complicity Vaster Powers Without: Mirroring Macbeth So Much More the Man Dispossession and Disavowal Pity, Like a Naked New-Born Babe Blood Will Have Blood Ere Humane Stature Purged the Gentle Weal \u003cb\u003ePART IV\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e9 \u003ci\u003eAntony and Cleopatra\u003c\/i\u003e: Making Defect Perfection \u003c\/b\u003e Tragedy Travestied The Nobleness of Life Past the Size of Dreaming: Utopian Realism A Lass Unparalleled \u003cb\u003e10 \u003ci\u003eCoriolanus\u003c\/i\u003e: A World Elsewhere \u003c\/b\u003e Antecedents and Affinities An Inventory to Particularize Their Abundance To Unbuild the City and to Lay All Flat A Kind of Nothing \u003ci\u003eWorks Cited\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eIndex\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing PLC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51019905171799,"sku":"9781472586995","price":71.25,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781472586995.jpg?v=1750781675","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/shakespearean-tragedy-9781472586995","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}