M4M Critcal anthology quotes Flashcards
Maslen ‘introduction: Shakespeare’s comic timing’
Comedy begins with grand promises to restrain its ebullience within permitted bounds, but ends by demonstrating its resistance to any firm of containment
Maslen ‘introduction: Shakespeare’s comic timing’
Comedy on the other hand made tyrants uncomfortable and roused then to rage
Maslen ‘introduction: Shakespeare’s comic timing’
Comedy by contrary dealt with the dangerous present whose inhabitants have an awkward propensity for taking umbrage and seeking revenge
Laroque ‘Shakespeare’s festive comedies’
Shakespeare’s festive comedies revel in a carnival spirit of liberty and irrelevance. They sanction sexual desire to be crowded and licensed by compassionate marriage
Laroque ‘Shakespeare’s festive comedies’
Marriage usually provides: an expression of the going on power of life
Laroque ‘Shakespeare’s festive comedies’
The festive comedies do not really end in clarification and in a resolution of the contrary forces of holiday and everyday
Hopkins in ‘marriage as a comic closure’
It is noteworthy that although single or multiple marriages are almost invariably the obvious goal of shakespearean comedy and are clearly signalled from the outset
Hopkins in ‘marriage as a comic closure’
For one thing despite the traditional view that marriage provides comic closure this is in fact very rarely achieved
Hopkins in ‘marriage as a comic closure’
Marriage is appropriate as a provider of closure for comedy because it focuses primarily on the experience of the group as opposed to the individualist, isolationist emphasis on tragedy
Kerr ‘the comic incongruity’
Comedy cocks an eye upward at the very same man who is straining to divinize himself
Kerr ‘the comic incongruity’
We cry because the disparity is unthinkable and we laugh because there is no other thing we can do about it laughter always erupts precisely as the situation becomes hopeless
Kerr ‘the comic incongruity’
Comedy depends upon tragedy because it would have no disparity with winch to which us
Brocksbank ‘the theatre of God’s judgement’
“the duke’s lies are white lies, meant to save the situation for the time being”
Brocksbank ‘the theatre of God’s judgement’
“we may continue to see the Duke as we see the friars of the earlier plays as the sum of the many well-meaning devices that people employ in order to save each other from the consequences of crime, passion and folly”
Brocksbank ‘the theatre of God’s judgement’
“the ugly predicament created by Angelo compels the duke to enter into an imperfectly convincing conspiracy of creative deception with Isabella and Marianna”
Brocksbank ‘the theatre of God’s judgement’
“the fantastical duke is a trickster too and Shakespeare a trickster, but the tricks are played to a saving purpose”
Hampton-Reeves the text and early performances
The sudden imposition of strict law is a nuisance and, in one case, nearly a tragedy
Hampton-Reeves the text and early performances
The actor-audience dynamic closely resembled the ritual relationship between monarch and subject.
Hampton-Reeves the text and early performances
We see characters fretting about the nature of authority and suffering when authority is misapplied
Hampton-Reeves the text and early performances
Measure for measure balances these different audience positions without ever resolving them.
Hampton-Reeves the text and early performances
The play is tightly bound up with the cultural politics of 1604
Maus introduction
Isabella isn’t exactly a rape victim; she must , as Angelo says, “fit her consent” to his proposal
Maus introduction
The effect of Shakespeare’s innovations on Whetstone, then, is both to heighten the ambivalence of the story and to focus the moral spotlight on isabella’s convictions and the choices that follow from them
Maus introduction
For Isabella, by contrast, virginity is a principled choice, not an accident of youth. The vow of lifelong, religiously dedicated chastity she plans to take is a matter about which Shakespeare’s contemporaries had conflicting feelings
Maus introduction
The question of what constitutes adequate severity is certainly at issue
Maus introduction
He (Shakespeare) is more deeply attentive to general issues about the often-vexed relationship between civic life and human passion and between religious commitment and the conduct of secular affairs
