Shakespeare and Greece
By
Alison Findlay (Contributor) Vassiliki Markidou (Contributor)
Hardback
Available / dispatched within 1 - 4 weeks
Quantity
Description
This book seeks to invert Ben Jonson's claim that Shakespeare had 'small Latin and less Greek' and to prove that, in fact, there is more Greek and less Latin in a significant group of Shakespeare's texts: a group whose generic hybridity (tragic-comical-historical-romance) exemplifies the hybridity of Greece in the early modern imagination. To early modern England, Greece was an enigma. It was the origin and idealised pinnacle of Western philosophy, tragedy, democracy, heroic human endeavour and, at the same time, an example of decadence: a fallen state, currently under Ottoman control, and therefore an exotic, dangerous, 'Other' in the most disturbing senses of the word. Indeed, while Britain was struggling to establish itself as a nation state and an imperial authority by emulating classical Greek models, this ambition was radically unsettled by early modern Greece's subjection to the Ottoman Empire, which rendered Europe's eastern borders dramatically vulnerable. Focusing, for the first time, on Shakespeare's 'Greek' texts (Venus and Adonis, The Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Love's Labour's Lost, Troilus and Cressida, Timon of Athens, King Lear, Pericles and The Two Noble Kinsmen), the volume considers how Shakespeare's use of antiquity and Greek myth intersects with early modern perceptions of the country and its empire.
About the Author
Alison Findlay is Professor of Renaissance Drama and Director of the Shakespeare Programme at Lancaster University, UK and Vassiliki Markidou is an Assistant Professor in English Literature and Culture at the Faculty of English Language and Literature, University of Athens, Greece.
More Details
- Contributor: Alison Findlay
- Imprint: The Arden Shakespeare
- ISBN13: 9781474244251
- Number of Pages: 304
- Packaged Dimensions: 129x198mm
- Packaged Weight: 406
- Format: Hardback
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Release Date: 2017-01-26
- Binding: Hardback
- Biography: Alison Findlay is Professor of Renaissance Drama and Director of the Shakespeare Programme at Lancaster University, UK and Vassiliki Markidou is an Assistant Professor in English Literature and Culture at the Faculty of English Language and Literature, University of Athens, Greece.
Delivery Options
Home Delivery
Store Delivery
Free Returns
We hope you are delighted with everything you buy from us. However, if you are not, we will refund or replace your order up to 30 days after purchase. Terms and exclusions apply; find out more from our Returns and Refunds Policy.