Keith Linley

'A Midsummer Night's Dream' in Context (eBook, ePUB)

Magic, Madness and Mayhem

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Everything you need to know about the cultural contexts of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. Is this just a light-hearted romp or is Shakespeare trying to make serious points about courtship, love, marriage and human folly? This book provides detailed in-depth discussion of the various influences that an Elizabethan audience would have brought to interpreting the play. How did people think about the world, about God, about sin, about kings, about civilized conduct, about the magic and madness of love and attraction? Historical, literary, political, sociological backgrounds are explained within the biblical-moral matrices by which the play would have been judged. This book links real life in the late 1590s to the world on the stage. Discover the orthodox beliefs people held about religion. Meet the Devil, Sin and Death. Learn about the social hierarchy, gender relationships, court corruption, class tensions, the literary profile of the time, attitudes to comedy - and all the subversions, transgressions, and oppositions that made the play a hilarious farce but also an unsettling picture of a world so close to disaster.

---

Dieser Download kann aus rechtlichen Gründen nur mit Rechnungsadresse in A, D ausgeliefert werden.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Anthem Press
• Seitenzahl: 302
• Erscheinungstermin: 21. November 2016
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781783085576
• Artikelnr.: 49419304

Autorenporträt

[e-mail]

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction
About this book - What is a context?
Part I. The Inherited Past
Prologue: The setting
i. The Historical Context
ii . The Elizabethan World Order: From Divinity To Dust
iii. Sin, Death and the Prince of Darkness
iv. The Seven Cardinal Virtues
v. Kingship
vi. Patriarchy, Family Authority and Gender relationships
vii. Man in His Place
viii. Images of Disorder: The Religious Context Unsettling Questions
Part II. The Elizabethan Present
ix. The Context of Comedy
x. Theseus and the Setting
xi. Puck's Permutations: The Context of Love
xii. 'Sweet Moon': The Context of Magic
xiii. Literary Context
xiv. Playing Parts
xv. Transgressions and Translations
Bibliography