Grav Shakespeare and the Economic Imperative

“What’s aught but as ‘tis valued?”
Erscheinungsjahr 2008
ISBN: 978-1-135-89412-2
Verlag: CRC Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 216 Seiten

Reihe: Studies in Major Literary Authors

Despite the volume of work Shakespeare produced, surprisingly few of his plays directly concern money and the economic mindset. Shakespeare and the Economic Imperative examines the five plays that do address monetary issues (The Comedy of Errors, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure and Timon of Athens), plays in which Shakespeare’s view of how economic determinants shape interpersonal relationships progressively darkens. In short, what thematically starts out in farce ends in nihilistic tragedy. Working within the critical stream of new economic criticism, this book uses formal analysis to interrogate how words are used — how words and metaphoric patterns from the quantifiable dealings of commerce transform into signifiers of qualitative values and how the endemic employment of discursive tropes based on mercantile principles debases human relationships. This examination is complemented by historical socio-economic contextualization, as it seems evident that the societies depicted in these plays reflect the changing world in which Shakespeare lived and wrote.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Grav, Peter F.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Dramen und Dramatiker

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments

Introduction: "The wind that bloweth all the world besides – desire for gold"

Chapter One: The Merchants of Ephesus and How Money Never Really Mattered

Chapter Two: Shakespeare’s England: The Merry Wives of Windsor’s Bourgeois Cash Values

Chapter Three: "My purse, my person": Conflating the Economic and the Personal in The Merchant of Venice

Chapter Four: The Exchange Economy of Measure for Measure: "You will needs buy and sell men and women like beasts":

Chapter Five: Reconciling the Two Timons: Shakespeare’s Philanthropist and Middleton’s Prodigal

Conclusion: "What’s aught but as ‘tis valued?"

Notes

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Dr. Peter F. Grav currently lectures at the School of Graduate Studies and the Department of English at the University of Toronto. He received his undergraduate degrees in Education and English Literature at the University of Ottawa and his Master’s and PhD in English Literature at the University of Toronto.