Publication

1997 - Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y, New York (State)

Language

English

Word Count

56,000 words, Guess

Page Count

224 pages

Identifiers

and 2 more
  • Goodreads3840956
  • LibraryThing149750

Classifications

  • DDC822.3/3
  • LCCPR2981.5 .J67 1997

Description

Constance Jordan looks at how Shakespeare, through his romances, contributed to the cultural debates over the nature of monarchy in Jacobean England. Stressing the differences between absolutist and constitutionalist principles of rule, Jordan reveals Shakespeare's investment in the idea that a head of state should be responsive to law, and not be governed by his unbridled will. Conflicts within royal courts which occur in the romances show wives, daughters, and servants resisting tyrannical husbands, fathers, masters, and monarchs by relying on the authority of conscience. Shakespeare's Monarchies recognizes the romances as politically inflected texts and confirms Shakespeare's involvement in the public discourse of the period.

First Sentence

SOUTHWARK, 1611. PLAYGOERS PATRONIZING THE GLOBE HAD A CHANCE to see two new plays by William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest.

Excerpt

SOUTHWARK, 1611. PLAYGOERS PATRONIZING THE GLOBE HAD A CHANCE to see two new plays by William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest.

Subjects

Other Editions

  • Shakespeare's monarchies: ruler and subject in the romancesCornell University Press1997-01-01

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