Includes bibliographical references and index.

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 Shakespeare’s Rome -- 3 Language and Dissolution -- 4 The Tragedy of Coercive Language -- 5 From Tragedy to Romance -- Epilogue -- Select Bibliography -- Index.

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 Shakespeare’s 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.

English

Description based on print version record.