| Stanley Edgar Hyman, Iago: Some Approaches to the Illusion of His Motivation ( New York, 1970), p. 4. | |
| Caroline Spurgeon, Shakespeare's Imagery ( Cambridge, 1935), p. ix. | |
| Madeleine Doran Endeavors of Art ( Madison, 1954) comprehensively records the justifying intellectual maneuvers of Renaissance aestheticians, notably in its chapter on "Verisimilitude," pp. 53-74. I am aware that there are startling exceptions to my "rule," among them Minturno, who conceded that "great praise is due the poet who wins for feigned things a faith filled with wonder" ( Doran, p. 408). But as Minturno's juxaposition of "wonder" and "faith" may indicate, Renaissance critics as a group are strongly motivated toward certitude and the rationalization of art. | |
| In Shakespearean Metadrama ( Minneapolis, 1971),
James L. Calderwood argues at length that the plays "are not only about the various . . . thematic issues with which critics have so long and quite properly been busy
but also about Shakespeare's plays. Not just 'the idea of the play' . . . but
dramatic art itself . . . is a dominant Shakespearean theme, perhaps his most
abiding subject" (p. 5). What Calderwood calls "metadrama" Sigurd Burckhardt designates "intrinsic interpretation" in Shakespearean Meanings ( Princeton, 1968); more restricted than these is Lionel Abel Metatheatre: A New View of Dramatic Form ( New York, 1963); a metadramatic perspective is implied as well in Kenneth Burke's 1951 article on Othello, Leslie Fiedler "Shakespeare and the Paradox of Illusion," in The Collected Essays of Leslie Fiedler ( New York, 1971), Anne Righter Shakespeare and the Idea of the Play ( London, 1962), Philip Edwards ' Shakespeare and the Confines of Art ( London, 1968), and Herbert Wiesinger's "Theatrum Mundi: Illusion as Reality," in The Agony and the Triumph ( East Lansing, 1964). | |
| King Leir, Malone Society Reprints, edited by W. W. Greg and R. Warwick Bond ( 1908), 11. 1232-33. |
| Readers have boldly rationalized the Sonnets from the start. John Benson's 1640 edition advertises them as "SEREN, cleare and eligantly plaine, such gentle straines as shall recreate and not perplex your brains, no |
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Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information:
Book title: Shakespeare's Creation:The Language of Magic and Play.
Contributors: Kirby Farrell - Author.
Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press.
Place of publication: Amherst .
Publication year: 1975.
Page number: 230.
This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.
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