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E-book
Author Beckwith, Sarah, 1959-

Title Shakespeare and the grammar of forgiveness / Sarah Beckwith
Published Ithaca [N.Y.] : Cornell University Press, 2011

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Description 1 online resource (xi, 228 pages)
Contents The mind's retreat from the face -- Rites of forgiveness, theater of forgiveness -- Repairs in the dark : Measure for measure and the end of comedy -- The recovery of voice in Pericles -- Acknowledgment and confession in Cymbeline -- Shakespeare's resurrections : The winter's tale -- Making good in The tempest
Summary "Shakespeare lived at a time when England was undergoing the revolution in ritual theory and practice we know as the English Reformation. With it came an unprecedented transformation in the language of religious life. Whereas priests had once acted as mediators between God and men through sacramental rites, Reformed theology declared the priesthood of all believers. What ensued was not the tidy replacement of one doctrine by another but a long and messy conversation about the conventions of religious life and practice. In this brilliant and strikingly original book, Sarah Beckwith traces the fortunes of this conversation in Shakespeare's theater
Beckwith focuses on the sacrament of penance, which in the Middle Ages stood as the very basis of Christian community and human relations. With the elimination of this sacrament, the words of penance and repentance --"confess," "forgive," "absolve"--No longer meant (no longer could mean) what they once did. In tracing the changing speech patterns of confession and absolution, both in Shakespeare's work and Elizabethan and Jacobean culture more broadly, Beckwith reveals Shakespeare's profound understanding of the importance of language as the fragile basis of our relations with others. In particular, she shows that the post-tragic plays, especially Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest, are explorations of the new regimes and communities of forgiveness. Drawing on the work of J.L. Austin, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Stanley Cavell, Beckwith enables us to see these plays in an entirely new light, skillfully guiding us through some of the deepest questions that Shakespeare poses to his audiences."--publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes In English
Print version record
Subject Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Tragicomedies.
SUBJECT Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Tragicomedies
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 fast
Shakespeare, William 1564-1616 gnd
Shakespeare, William. idszbz
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Late plays. idszbzes
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Romances. idszbzes
Shakespeare, William, (1564-1616) -- Critique et interprétation. ram
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- tragikomedier. sao
Subject Forgiveness in literature.
Penance in literature.
LITERARY CRITICISM -- Shakespeare.
DRAMA -- English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh.
Forgiveness in literature
Penance in literature
Tragikomödie
Verzeihung Motiv
Buße Motiv
Vergeving.
Boetedoening.
Drama.
Motiv.
Verzeihung.
Buße.
Forgiveness in literature.
Speech acts -- Literature.
Penance in literature.
Pardon -- Dans la littérature.
Pénitence -- Dans la littérature.
Förlåtelse i litteraturen.
Genre/Form Electronic books
Tragicomedies
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780801460623
080146062X
0801449782
9780801449789