Description
Book SynopsisEstablishes a conceptual link between early modern English drama and twentieth-century political theology, both of which emerge from the experience of political crisis. Nicole Miller's analyses retrieve for political theology the relations between gender, sexuality, and the political aesthetics of violence on the early modern stage, addressing the plays of Marlowe, Middleton, and Shakespeare.
Trade ReviewWhile Miller constantly engages major ideas and texts, she shows perhaps her greatest talent as a close reader, not only of the early modern texts but of their sources and the more contemporary theory she uses to illuminate them . . .The result is a closely reasoned and closely argued contribution to today’s early modern studies that also understands its roots in a precarious present."" -
Modern PhilologyTable of Contents
- Introduction
- The Problem: Exceptional Life
- Part I: States of Affliction
- Prologue
- The Sexual Politics of Pain: Hannah Arendt Meets Shakespeare’s Shrew
- Chapter One
- Undead Letters: Marlowe’s and Kantorowicz’s Reliquary Arts
- Chapter Two
- The Revenger’s Decision: Exceptional Law Between Middleton and Schmitt
- Part II: States of Grace
- Chapter Three
- Sacred Life and Sacrificial Economy: Coriolanus in No-Man’s Land
- Chapter Four
- The Aesthetics of Messianic Time: Gravity and Grace in King Lear
- Chapter Five
- Paul’s Call; Cymbeline’s Calling
- Epilogue
- Last Words: Reading Political Life
