Shakespeare and the Theater of Pity

This volume explores Shakespeare's interest in pity, an emotion that serves as an important catalyst for action within the plays, even as it generates one of the audience's most common responses to tragic drama in the theater.

Autorentext

Shawn Smith received his Ph.D. in Renaissance studies from Yale University and is an Associate Professor of English at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia, where he teaches Shakespeare, Renaissance literature, and world literature. His scholarship has focused on Shakespeare and the history of rhetoric from antiquity to the Renaissance.

Klappentext

This volume explores Shakespeare's interest in pity, an emotion that serves as an important catalyst for action within the plays, even as it generates one of the audience's most common responses to tragic drama in the theater.

Inhalt

Preface

1. INTRODUCTION: SINON'S BORROWED TEARS

2. PITY AND PIETY IN TITUS ANDRONICUS

3. LOVE, PITY, AND DECEPTION IN OTHELLO

4. PITY AND POVERTY IN KING LEAR

5. EPILOGUE: THE "NAKED, NEW-BORN BABE"