The Absent ShakespeareBuilding on recent textual studies of King Lear and Hamlet, which compare Folio and Quarto differences, Mirsky sees them not just as an opportunity to view the playwright revising toward more skillful staging, greater complexity of plot, and ambiguity of character. The process of revision also exposes a personal Shakespeare. Differences between Folio and Quarto texts show the growing sophistication of Shakespeare's dramatic craft and reveal how the playwright changed as he matured. The book presents a dramatist maturing in time, grappling with incest, patricide, filicide, erotic love, and the inevitability of death. It finds this naked Shakespeare in Macbeth and The Tempest as well, expressed in the riddles of the plays. The author refers not only to the text of Shakespeare but also to the plays in performance - suggesting how the actor's reading and interpretation lay bare the intentions of the playwright on the stage. |
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Contents
15 | |
19 | |
The Itch Revises | 33 |
Hamlets Father | 47 |
The Shadows Dance | 71 |
Macbeths Child | 99 |
What Prospero Knows | 125 |
Shakespeares Myth | 141 |
Notes | 147 |
169 | |
172 | |
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Common terms and phrases
action actor Alfred Harbage ambition anger anxiety audience Banquo begins Caliban calls child Claudius Claudius's conscience Cordelia court cries dark daughter dead death doth drama dream echo Edgar Edited Edmund erotic evil fantasy father fear Ferdinand flesh Folio Fool foul Gertrude Gertrude's Ghost Gloucester Gloucester's Gonerill grave Hamlet hath hear Heaven Hesiod Horatio husband incestuous innocent joke King Lear King's Lady Macbeth Laertes Laertes's latter Lear's lines look Lord Macduff madness magic mind Miranda mock mole mother murder nature never Oedipus Ophelia Osric Pillicock play playwright plot Polonius Prince Prince Hamlet Prince's Prospero question reality reference Regan remark revenge riddle scene Second Quarto seems sense sexual Shake Shakespeare sisters sleep soliloquy Sophocles speaks speech stage suggests suicide T. S. Eliot Tempest thee thou tion tragedy Urkowitz W. W. Greg wife William Shakespeare witches word
Popular passages
Page 21 - Hear, Nature, hear ! dear goddess, hear ! Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend To make this creature fruitful ! Into her womb convey sterility ! Dry up in her the organs of increase, And from her derogate body never spring A babe to honour her...