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Shakespeare, Machiavelli, and Montaigne

Power and Subjectivity from Richard II to Hamlet

Hugh Grady author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

Published:28th Nov '02

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Shakespeare, Machiavelli, and Montaigne cover

From 1595-1600 Shakespeare dissected the workings of political power in the four histories of the Henriad and in Hamlet in ways which were remarkably parallel - and were perhaps influenced by - the ideas of the father of modern political analysis, Niccolò Machiavelli. However, the very same plays simultaneously explored the dynamics of self- and identity-formation under new conditions of secular modernity, in the process producing such memorable characters as Richard II, Prince Hal, Falstaff, and Hamlet. Hugh Grady argues that in analyzing modern subjectivity, Shakespeare re-produced not the ideas of Machiavelli, but those of Michel de Montaigne, that Renaissance definer of shifting identities and subjectivities and of complexly formed, sceptical knowledge. In so doing, Shakespeare in effect contributes to the theoretical debates over power and subjectivity in literary and cultural studies at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

Grady again has made a genuine contribution to current criticism of Shakespeare and critical theory. * Choice *

ISBN: 9780199257607

Dimensions: 223mm x 146mm x 23mm

Weight: 479g

298 pages