| Free Will: Art and power on Shakespeare's stage Contributor(s): Wilson, Richard (Author) |
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ISBN: 0719091799 ISBN-13: 9780719091797 Publisher: Manchester University Press OUR PRICE: $43.65 Product Type: Paperback Published: March 2014 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | Europe - Great Britain - General - Literary Criticism | Shakespeare |
| Dewey: 822.33 |
| LCCN: 2013497526 |
| Physical Information: 1.5" H x 5.4" W x 8.4" (1.30 lbs) 480 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - British Isles |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Free Will: Art and power on Shakespeare's stage is a study of theatre and sovereignty that situates Shakespeare's plays in the contraflow between two absolutisms of early modern England: the aesthetic and the political. Starting from the dramatist's cringing relations with his princely patrons, Richard Wilson considers the ways in which this 'bending author' identifies freedom in failure and power in weakness by staging the endgames of a sovereignty that begs to be set free from itself. The arc of Shakespeare's career becomes in this comprehensive new interpretation a sustained resistance to both the institutions of sacred kingship and literary autonomy that were emerging in his time. In a sequence of close material readings, Free Will shows how the plays instead turn command performances into celebrations of an art without sovereignty, which might 'give delight' but 'hurt not', and 'leave not a rack behind'. Free Will is a profound rereading of Shakespeare, art and power that will contribute to thinking not only about the plays, but also about aesthetics, modernity, sovereignty and violence. |