Big-time Shakespeare

by Michael D . Bristol (Author)

• New

  Hardcover
  1996

  $139.18

  This study suggests that Shakespeare's plays represent the pathos of our civilization with extraordinary force and clarity. His characters remain interesting because we recognize what they are going through. Shakespeare's contradictory understanding of the social and cultural past is examined.

• New

  Paperback
  1996

  $41.36

  Shakespeare has made the big time. No less than the Beatles or Liberace, Elvis Presley or Mick Jagger, Shakespeare is big-time in the idiomatic sense of cultural success and widespread notoriety. Not only has he achieved canonical status, Shakespeare is a contemporary celebrity. His artistic distinction and aptitude for controversy constantly keeps his name in the public eye.
  Bristol debates Shakespeare's cultural authority, and clarifies the semantics of his name in our culture. Big-Time Shakespeare suggests his plays represent the pathos of our civilisation with extraordinary force and clarity. Shakespeare's contradictory understanding of the social and cultural past is also examined with close analysis of The Winter's Tale, Othello, and Hamlet.