Focusing on literary fascination as a central theme, the book examines how aesthetic attraction shapes the design, presentation, and reception of literary works. Through detailed case studies, it analyzes texts from notable authors such as Shakespeare, Coleridge, Shelley, Stoker, Wilde, Conrad, DeLillo, and McEwan, providing insights into the interplay between literature and its audience.
Exploring the poetics of the human face, this book delves into the art of physiognomy and nonverbal communication in Shakespeare's works. It provides fresh insights into Shakespeare's characterization and performance techniques, highlighting the significance of facial expression as a focal point. The reliability of the human face is often questioned, creating a provocative subtext that enriches the overall narrative and engages with themes of perception and trust.
This handbook, which addresses specialists and non-specialists of drama alike, provides a concise overview of dramatic genres and developments in the history of British drama. Bringing together experts in the field, it critically reflects major thematic concerns and formal conventions that shaped drama in diverse periods. Rather than focusing primarily on individual authors, this History offers a diachronically structured series of introductions to main dramatic genres as well as exemplary analyses of plays that can serve as paradigm examples of the respective (sub-)genres at the time. In addition to presenting an array of theoretical and methodological approaches to central plays, each chapter exemplifies crucial generic developments in model interpretations linking aesthetic concerns to cultural issues of the time. Using the analytical tools and methods developed by literary studies in general and the analysis of drama in particular, this handbook provides readers with a systematic framework to place and understand the most important generic traditions of British drama.
The present volume offers a concise introduction to key tools and techniques for analysing and interpreting dramatic texts. Drawing on a wide range of examples from major dramatic works, the volume introduces major concepts and methods which will enable students to successfully tackle and interpret new and unfamiliar plays. Tailored to students’ needs and demands, this introduction offers an essential guide to the analysis of plays and drama, which can be used as a foundation for an introductory course or as an aid in the independent study of drama.
Literature serves as a vital means of worldmaking, helping us make sense of our lives while reflecting, reinforcing, and constructing the norms and values we uphold. Despite the renewed focus on the ethical dimension of literature, the intricate relationship between literature and values requires further exploration. This volume delves into how literature and other media represent, disseminate, and construct values. Through historical case studies from the Early Modern era to the twenty-first century, it examines literature's shaping influence on moral values and the reciprocal impact of existing norms on literary works. The essays investigate the intersection of ethics and aesthetics, exploring how moral and aesthetic dimensions influence one another. They also analyze strategies for mediating values and raising awareness of moral issues. The first part of the volume discusses theories and concepts related to values and ethical norms, highlighting the complex interplay between literature and values. The second part presents a diverse array of historical and critical case studies, offering numerous examples that illustrate the dissemination and negotiation of values in literature and other media.
Physiognomik und Gesichtslektüren in Shakespeares Tragödien
"There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face" - Duncans antiphysiognomisches Diktum in 'Macbeth' täuscht über das vielleicht bedeutsamste Kommunikationsmedium auf Shakespeares Bühne hinweg: Vor allem in den Tragödien wird die physiognomische Lektüre als dramatischer Akt inszeniert und die Lesbarkeit des Leibes, speziell des Gesichts, das mal als offenes Buch mal als kryptisches Dokument erscheint, diskutiert. Die Konstruktion und Rezeption von Charakteren in ihrem buchstäblichen wie in ihrem übertragenen Sinn verweisen auf einen komplexen Ausdrucksdiskurs, der nicht nur der Renaissance der Physiognomik in der Frühen Neuzeit Rechnung trägt, sondern zugleich eine Metaebene eröffnet, die die Zuschauer zur kritischen Mitleserschaft einlädt und die einzelnen Stücke neu und anders lesbar werden läßt.