Shakespeare's Englishes
eBook - PDF

Shakespeare's Englishes

Against Englishness

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Shakespeare's Englishes

Against Englishness

About this book

Whose English is 'true' English? What is its relation to the national character? These were urgent questions in Shakespeare's England just as questions of language and identity are today. Through close readings of early comedies and history plays, this study demonstrates how Shakespeare resists the shaping of ideas of the English language and national character by Protestant Reformation ideology. Tudeau-Clayton argues this ideology promoted the notional temperate and honest citizen, plainly spoken and plainly dressed, as the normative centre of (the) 'true' English. Compelling studies of two symmetrical pairs of cultural memes: 'the King's English' versus 'the gallimaufry' and 'the true-born Englishman' versus the 'Fantastical Gull', demonstrate how 'the traitor' came to be defined as much by non-conformity to cultural 'habits' as by allegiance to the monarch. Tudeau-Clayton cogently argues Shakespeare subverted this narrow, class-inflected concept of English identity, proposing instead an inclusive, mixed and unlimited community of 'our English'.

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Yes, you can access Shakespeare's Englishes by Margaret Tudeau-Clayton in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & English Literary Criticism. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Half-title
  3. Title page
  4. Copyright information
  5. Epigraph
  6. Contents
  7. List of Table and Illustrations
  8. Acknowledgements
  9. Chapter 1 Introduction: Shakespeare and Cultural Reformation Ideology
  10. Chapter 2 Shakespeare and 'the King's English': Language, History, Power
  11. Chapter 3 Shakespeare and 'the true-born Englishman': 'Theatre' and the Ideology of National Character
  12. Chapter 4 'they bring in straing rootes': Shakespeare and 'the straingers case'
  13. Chapter 5 Figures and Parables of a 'straing' Word: Shakespeare's 'extravagancy'
  14. Bibliography
  15. Index