Download or read book Shakespeare s Freedom written by Stephen Greenblatt and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-11-15 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shakespeare lived in a world of absolutes—of claims for the absolute authority of scripture, monarch, and God, and the authority of fathers over wives and children, the old over the young, and the gentle over the baseborn. With the elegance and verve for which he is well known, Stephen Greenblatt, author of the best-selling Will in the World, shows that Shakespeare was strikingly averse to such absolutes and constantly probed the possibility of freedom from them. Again and again, Shakespeare confounds the designs and pretensions of kings, generals, and churchmen. His aversion to absolutes even leads him to probe the exalted and seemingly limitless passions of his lovers. Greenblatt explores this rich theme by addressing four of Shakespeare’s preoccupations across all the genres in which he worked. He first considers the idea of beauty in Shakespeare’s works, specifically his challenge to the cult of featureless perfection and his interest in distinguishing marks. He then turns to Shakespeare’s interest in murderous hatred, most famously embodied in Shylock but seen also in the character Bernardine in Measure for Measure. Next Greenblatt considers the idea of Shakespearean authority—that is, Shakespeare’s deep sense of the ethical ambiguity of power, including his own. Ultimately, Greenblatt takes up Shakespearean autonomy, in particular the freedom of artists, guided by distinctive forms of perception, to live by their own laws and to claim that their creations are singularly unconstrained. A book that could only have been written by Stephen Greenblatt, Shakespeare’s Freedom is a wholly original and eloquent meditation by the most acclaimed and influential Shakespearean of our time.
Download or read book Shakespeare s Freedom written by and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Shakespeare for Freedom written by Ewan Fernie and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-16 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cover -- Half-title page -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Dedication -- Contents -- List of Figures -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Reclaiming Shakespearean Freedom -- 2 Shakespeare Means Freedom -- 3 'Freetown!' (Romeo and Juliet) -- 4 Freetown-upon-Avon -- 5 Freetown-am-Main -- 6 Free Artists of Their Own Selves! -- 7 Freetown Philosopher -- 8 Against Shakespearean Freedom -- 9 The Freedom of Complete Being -- Notes -- Index
Download or read book How to Think Like Shakespeare written by Scott Newstok and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-31 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book offers a short, spirited defense of rhetoric and the liberal arts as catalysts for precision, invention, and empathy in today's world. The author, a professor of Shakespeare studies at a liberal arts college and a parent of school-age children, argues that high-stakes testing and a culture of assessment have altered how and what students are taught, as courses across the arts, humanities, and sciences increasingly are set aside to make room for joyless, mechanical reading and math instruction. Students have been robbed of a complete education, their imaginations stunted by this myopic focus on bare literacy and numeracy. Education is about thinking, Newstok argues, rather than the mastery of a set of rigidly defined skills, and the seemingly rigid pedagogy of the English Renaissance produced some of the most compelling and influential examples of liberated thinking. Each of the fourteen chapters explores an essential element of Shakespeare's world and work, aligns it with the ideas of other thinkers and writers in modern times, and suggests opportunities for further reading. Chapters on craft, technology, attention, freedom, and related topics combine past and present ideas about education to build a case for the value of the past, the pleasure of thinking, and the limitations of modern educational practices and prejudices"--
Download or read book My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter written by Aja Monet and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2017-05-01 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I am 27 and have never killed a man but I know the face of death as if heirloom my country memorizes murder as lullaby —from “For Fahd” Textured with the sights and sounds of growing up in East New York in the nineties, to school on the South Side of Chicago, all the way to the olive groves of Palestine, My Mother Is a Freedom Fighter is Aja Monet’s ode to mothers, daughters, and sisters—the tiny gods who fight to change the world. Complemented by striking cover art from Carrie Mae Weems, these stunning poems tackle racism, sexism, genocide, displacement, heartbreak, and grief, but also love, motherhood, spirituality, and Black joy. Praise for Aja Monet: ““[Monet] is the true definition of an artist.” —Harry Belafonte ““In Paris, she walked out onto the stage, opened her mouth and spoke. At the first utterance I heard that rare something that said this is special and knew immediately that Aja Monet was one of the Ones who will mark the sound of the ages. She brings depth of voice to the voiceless, and through her we sing a powerful song.” —Carrie Mae Weems Of Cuban-Jamaican descent, Aja Monet is an internationally established poet, performer, singer, songwriter, educator, and human rights advocate. Monet is also the youngest person to win the legendary Nuyorican Poet’s Café Grand Slam title.
Download or read book Shakespeare for Freedom written by Ewan Fernie and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-16 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shakespeare for Freedom presents a powerful, plausible and political argument for Shakespeare's meaning and value. It ranges across the breadth of the Shakespeare phenomenon, offering a new interpretation not just of the characters and plays, but also of the part they have played in theatre, criticism, civic culture and politics. Its story includes a glimpse of 'Freetown' in Romeo and Juliet, which comes to life in the 1769 Stratford Jubilee; the Shakespearean careers of the Leicester Chartist, Cooper, and the Hungarian hero, Kossuth; Hegel's recognition of Shakespearean freedom as the modern breakthrough; its fatal effects in America; the disgust it inspired in Tolstoy; its rehabilitation by Ted Hughes, and its obscure centrality in the 2012 Olympics. Ultimately, it issues a positive Shakespearean prognosis for freedom as a vital (in both senses), unending struggle. Shakespeare for Freedom shows why Shakespeare has mattered for four hundred years, and why he still matters today.
Download or read book Shakespeare s Individualism written by Peter Holbrook and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-01-21 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing a provocative and original perspective on Shakespeare, Peter Holbrook argues that Shakespeare is an author friendly to such essentially modern and unruly notions as individuality, freedom, self-realization and authenticity. These expressive values vivify Shakespeare's own writing; they also form a continuous, and a central, part of the Shakespearean tradition. Engaging with the theme of the individual will in specific plays and poems, and examining a range of libertarian-minded scholarly and literary responses to Shakespeare over time, Shakespeare's Individualism advances the proposition that one of the key reasons for reading Shakespeare today is his commitment to individual liberty - even as we recognize that freedom is not just an indispensable ideal but also, potentially, a dangerous one. Engagingly written and jargon free, this book demonstrates that Shakespeare has important things to say about fundamental issues of human existence.
Download or read book The Soul of Statesmanship written by Khalil M. Habib and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-09-15 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shakespeare’s plays explore a staggering range of political topics, from the nature of tyranny, to the practical effects of Christianity on politics and the family, to the meaning and practice of statesmanship. From great statesmen like Burke and Lincoln to the American frontiersman sitting by his rustic fire, those wrestling with the problems of the human soul and its confrontation with a puzzling world of political peril and promise have long considered these plays a source of political wisdom. The chapters in this volume support and illuminate this connection between Shakespearean drama and politics by examining a matter of central concern in both domains: the human soul. By depicting a bewildering variety of characters as they seek happiness and self-knowledge in the context of differing political regimes, family ties, religious duties, friendships, feuds, and poetic inspirations, Shakespeare illuminates the complex interdynamics between self-rule and political governance, educating readers by compelling us to share in the struggles of and relate to the tensions felt by each character in a way that no political treatise or lecture can. The authors of this volume, drawing upon expertise in fields such as political philosophy, American government, and law, explore the Bard’s dramatization of perennial questions about human nature, moral virtue, and statesmanship, demonstrating that reading his plays as works of philosophical literature enhances our understanding of political life and provides a source of advice and inspiration for the citizens and statesmen of today and tomorrow.
Download or read book Shakespeare in a Divided America written by James Shapiro and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the New York Times Ten Best Books of the Year • A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • A New York Times Notable Book A timely exploration of what Shakespeare’s plays reveal about our divided land. “In this sprightly and enthralling book . . . Shapiro amply demonstrates [that] for Americans the politics of Shakespeare are not confined to the public realm, but have enormous relevance in the sphere of private life.” —The Guardian (London) The plays of William Shakespeare are rare common ground in the United States. For well over two centuries, Americans of all stripes—presidents and activists, soldiers and writers, conservatives and liberals alike—have turned to Shakespeare’s works to explore the nation’s fault lines. In a narrative arching from Revolutionary times to the present day, leading scholar James Shapiro traces the unparalleled role of Shakespeare’s four-hundred-year-old tragedies and comedies in illuminating the many concerns on which American identity has turned. From Abraham Lincoln’s and his assassin, John Wilkes Booth’s, competing Shakespeare obsessions to the 2017 controversy over the staging of Julius Caesar in Central Park, in which a Trump-like leader is assassinated, Shakespeare in a Divided America reveals how no writer has been more embraced, more weaponized, or has shed more light on the hot-button issues in our history.
Download or read book Shakespeare and the Culture of Christianity in Early Modern England written by Dennis Taylor and published by Studies in Religion and Litera. This book was released on 2003 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The question of Shakespeare's Catholic contexts has occupied many scholars in recent years and this study brings together 16 original essays examining Shakespeare's work in the light of revisionist scholarship, from monastic life in 'Measure for Measure' to Puritanism in 'Hamlet'.
Download or read book Shakespeare and the Resistance written by Clare Asquith and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2018-08-21 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shakespeare's largely misunderstood narrative poems contain within them an explosive commentary on the political storms convulsing his country The 1590s were bleak years for England. The queen was old, the succession unclear, and the treasury empty after decades of war. Amid the rising tension, William Shakespeare published a pair of poems dedicated to the young Earl of Southampton: Venus and Adonis in 1593 and The Rape of Lucrece a year later. Although wildly popular during Shakespeare's lifetime, to modern readers both works are almost impenetrable. But in her enthralling new book, the Shakespearean scholar Clare Asquith reveals their hidden contents: two politically charged allegories of Tudor tyranny that justified-and even urged-direct action against an unpopular regime. The poems were Shakespeare's bestselling works in his lifetime, evidence that they spoke clearly to England's wounded populace and disaffected nobility, and especially to their champion, the Earl of Essex. Shakespeare and the Resistance unearths Shakespeare's own analysis of a political and religious crisis which would shortly erupt in armed rebellion on the streets of London. Using the latest historical research, it resurrects the story of a bold bid for freedom of conscience and an end to corruption that was erased from history by the men who suppressed it. This compelling reading situates Shakespeare at the heart of the resistance movement.
Download or read book Will in the World How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare Anniversary Edition written by Stephen Greenblatt and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2010-05-03 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named One of Esquire's 50 Best Biographies of All Time The Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, reissued with a new afterword for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. A young man from a small provincial town moves to London in the late 1580s and, in a remarkably short time, becomes the greatest playwright not of his age alone but of all time. How is an achievement of this magnitude to be explained? Stephen Greenblatt brings us down to earth to see, hear, and feel how an acutely sensitive and talented boy, surrounded by the rich tapestry of Elizabethan life, could have become the world’s greatest playwright.
Download or read book Shakespeare s Landlord written by Charlaine Harris and published by Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.. This book was released on 2023-01-10 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Charlaine Harris, the #1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author behind HBO’s hit series True Blood and NBC’s Midnight, Texas, the first in a series of mysteries that hits as hard as its heroine... Lily Bard has no illusions about her little town being safe, or peaceful, or full of goodness. Shakespeare, Arkansas, was nothing but a name on a map when she moved here. But Lily has kept her head down in Shakespeare for four years: cleaned houses, blocked unwelcome memories, and honed her body into a weapon with goju karate. It’s as long as she’s lasted anywhere since the nightmare that changed her life, and she’s willing to dust around the skeletons in her neighbors’ closets—provided they mind their business about her past, too. But when a dead body is dumped practically in her front yard, she can’t look away and leave it to innocents to find. And as the investigation creeps closer to Lily, her clients, and the secrets they all keep, she knows her hard-fought peace is in danger. She’s living in close quarters with a murderer. The police are sniffing around her history. And once again, all eyes are on Lily Bard. She could leave town, and give up on the home she’s begun to make. Or she could stay, and root out the killer herself...
Download or read book Shakespeare s Twenty first Century Economics written by Frederick Turner and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1999 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Making constant recourse to well-known material from Shakespeare's plays, this text demonstrates that terms of money and value permeate our minds and lives even in our most mundane moments.
Download or read book Shakespeare and the Law written by Dunbar P. Barton and published by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.. This book was released on 1999 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Barton's entertaining and handy study reviews allusions to trials, judges, advocates, courts, procedure, legal concepts and terminology in Shakespeare's plays. Also biographical, Barton considers Shakespeare's personal relation to the Inns of Court and Chancery and the extent of his legal expertise.
Download or read book Why Freedom Matters written by Daniel R. Katz and published by Workman Publishing. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why Freedom Matters celebrates freedom in over 100 speeches, letters, essays, poems, and songs, all infused with the spirit of democracy. Here are the voices of presidents and slaves, founding fathers and hip-hop artists, suffragettes, civil rights workers, preachers, labor leaders, and baseball players. Inspired by the Declaration of Independence, the book is published in conjunction with The Declaration of Independence Road Trip, a 3 1/2-year cross-country educational tour of an extremely rare, original hand-printed copy of the Declaration. The Declaration of Independence Road Trip's mission is to energize Americans by bringing our founding document to towns small and large across the country. Like the document itself, this compelling anthology reveals America's soul as it wrestles with questions of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and strives to fulfill the ideals of Thomas Jefferson's words.
Download or read book English Renaissance Tragedy written by Peter Holbrook and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-09-24 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book's underlying claim is that English Renaissance tragedy addresses live issues in the experience of readers and spectators today: it is not a genre to be studied only for aesthetic or “heritage” reasons. The book considers the way in which tragedy in general, and English Renaissance tragedy in particular, addresses ideas of freedom, understood both from an individual and a sociopolitical perspective. Tragedy since the Greeks has addressed the constraints and necessities to which human life is subject (Fate, the gods, chance, the conflict between state and individual) as well as the human desire for autonomy and self-direction. In short, English Renaissance Tragedy: Ideas of Freedom shows how the tragic drama of Shakespeare's age addresses problems of freedom, slavery, and tyranny in ways that speak to us now.
