Shakespeare's Catholic context was the most important literary discovery of the last century. No biography of the Bard is now complete without chapters on the paranoia and persecution in which he was educated, or the treason which engulfed his family. Whether to suffer outrageous fortune or take up arms in suicidal resistance was, as Hamlet says, 'the question' that fired Shakespeare's stage. In 'Secret Shakespeare' Richard Wilson asks why the dramatist remained so enigmatic about his own beliefs, and so silent on the atrocities he survived.
Shakespeare constructed a drama not of discovery, like his rivals, but of darkness, deferral, evasion and disguise, where, for all his hopes of a 'golden time' of future toleration, 'What's to come' is always unsure. Whether or not 'He died a papist', it is because we can never 'pluck out the heart' of his mystery that Shakespeare's plays retain their unique potential to resist.
This is a fascinating work, which will be essential reading for all scholars of Shakespeare and Renaissance studies.
- 337 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF
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Information
Subtopic
English Literary CriticismIndex
LiteratureTable of contents
- Front matter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1. Wrapped in a player's hide Shakespeare's secret history
- 2. Ghostly fathers Shakeshafte and the Jesuits
- 3. Secret as a dumb man Two comedies of Italy and the genesis of secrecy
- 4. No news but the old news Shakespeare and the tragedy of Arden
- 5. A bloody question The politics of Venus and Adonis
- 6. Love in idleness The stripping of the altars in A Midsummer Night's Dream
- 7. Dyed in mummy Othello and the mulberries
- 8. The pilot's thumb Macbeth and the martyrs'
- 9. Voyage to Tunis New history and the old world of The Tempest
- 10. Unseasonable laughter The context of Cardenio
- 11. The statue of our queen Shakespeare's open secret
- 12. A Winter's Tale
- Epilogue Our bending author
- Bibliography
- Index
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Yes, you can access Secret Shakespeare by Richard Wilson in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & English Literary Criticism. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.