Shakespeare's Sceptered Isle

Finding English National Identity in the Plays
Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4766-8582-3
Verlag: McFarland

Buch, Englisch, 277 Seiten, Paperback, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 430 g

This work searches Shakespeare's history and Roman plays to find the raw materials of English national consciousness and identity. The messages of Shakespeare's history plays are not principally the plots or "facts" of the dramas but the attitudes and imaginings they elicited in audiences. Reading Shakespeare through the lens of national identity is a study almost as old as the plays themselves, and many scholars have found various articulations of nationhood in Shakespeare's plays.

This book argues that Shakespeare's histories furnished modern England with a curriculum for constructing a national identity, a confidence of language and culture, and a powerful new medium through which to communicate and express this negotiated identity. Highlighting the application of semiotics, it studies the playwright's use of symbols, metonymy, symbolic codes, and metaphor. By examining what Shakespeare and playgoers remembered and forgot, as well as the ways ideas were framed, this book explores how a national identity was crafted, contested, and circulated.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Carroll, Brian

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Dramen und Dramatiker

Über Autor(innen)

Brian Carroll, a professor and chair of communication at Berry College in Mount Berry, Georgia, is the author of seven books.