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Shakespeareâs Tragic Language
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In Shakespearean tragedy, language is used to bring about the downfall of characters, but there is also a tragedy which affects language itself through the decomposition of the fundamental concepts and mythologies which give identity to both societies and individuals. This book shows how in Shakespeareâs English history plays, Roman plays, tragicomedies, and romances, characters use language to manipulate and destroy others, but also imprison themselves in false reasoning. The misuse of language creates tragedies for individuals but also for society at large, as its conceptual building blocks lose their capacity to function. For Shakespeare, tragedy happens both to individuals and to cultures, and happens both in language and to language.
Paul Hammond (Litt.D., Cambridge, 1996) is Professor of Seventeenth-Century English Literature at the University of Leeds and a Fellow of the British Academy. His books include The Strangeness of Tragedy (2009) and Tragic Agency in Classical Drama from Aeschylus to Racine (2022).
Preface
Acknowledgements
Note on Texts and Abbreviations
Glossary of Rhetorical Terms
Prologue: Tragic Language
1 Tragic Language in the Early History Plays
2 Tragic Language in Shakespeareâs Rome
3 Language and Dissolution
4 The Tragedy of Coercive Language
5 From Tragedy to Romance
Epilogue
Select Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
Note on Texts and Abbreviations
Glossary of Rhetorical Terms
Prologue: Tragic Language
1 Tragic Language in the Early History Plays
2 Tragic Language in Shakespeareâs Rome
3 Language and Dissolution
4 The Tragedy of Coercive Language
5 From Tragedy to Romance
Epilogue
Select Bibliography
Index
Undergraduate and postgraduate students, and college and university teachers of English literature, especially Shakespeare; and specialists in drama, especially tragedy.